@Capt_Gigglepants
For awhile now, the only violence that's been recorded during the protests have come from police and random assholes attacking protesters. Hence, veterans groups and such coming in to side with and protect the protesters. Earlier claims about the riots also became suspect when the guy who was running around breaking windows at the beginning was identified by the police as a former leader of a white supremacist group. It's also best to keep in mind that a lot of what's reported is just citing police statements directly. Since the criticism is that they are attacking the protesters, use excessive violence and weaponry, using civil asset forfeiture to steal, and generally just doing what they want to people as long as no one will check, it would be best not to just take the police at their word about what the people protesting their behavior are doing. Hell, the police claimed that protesters assaulted them with rocks and bottles when they had a plain clothes unit drive up in an unmarked van to jump out and grab one of the protesters and run off. The scene was caught on video from multiple angles and all that happened to the police is that she dropped a water bottle and it rolled toward the van when they abducted her. If what they can do isn't restrained, they become an attractive position for people looking to abuse that authority. The best option is to take away their ability to buy internationally banned chemical weapons and limit the use of police for violent cases (already cuts down their calls to 4%) while redirecting the money that has been pumped into them over the last few decades back into other services we've been taking from during that time and replacement services that would deal with all the non-violent stuff the police aren't trained to deal with.