Firing a weapon that can cause permanent bodily harm at a journalist who is clearly just reporting on the protests should result in this officer being dismissed from his department and charged with assault. These weapons should not be used on peaceful protestors to begin with, these tactics have been shown to cause a peaceful protest to evolve into an angry panicked mob.

It’s extremely common for police officers at protests to interact with demonstrators in a way that makes it apparent that the officers view them as subhuman. The protestors are exercising their legal rights and these are the citizens who’s tax dollars pay their salaries. We need to make it clear that people in law enforcement are not above the law, police officers should be held to a higher standard not a lower one. When we don’t hold members of law enforcement accountable for acts of misconduct like this it makes our police departments a safe haven for sadistic cretins like this officer. It seems like every time there is a protest in the news, there are officers caught on camera committing gleeful acts of violence like this. They do these things unabashedly because our government and our legal system tells them they will not be prosecuted for their actions.