Quite frankly I find it baffling that people care so much about violently forcing provinces they don’t even live in to stay in their country.
People were disrupting public order and doing an illegal activity (referendum) with public money. Normal people couldn't get to work or go to the doctor because people were blocking roads.
That is what police is for basically, I am glad we have police to protect us.
Maybe your constitution is different than ours, I don't tell Canada how to rule itself. I find it baffling that people think they can tell other countries how to govern themselves from so far away!
What I saw in the news at the time was that the rest of Spain shipped in armed goons from outside Catalonia in to beat people up who were trying to vote in the independence referendum.
Did that not happen?