The police is almost never neutral when it comes to protests, not just in their tactics (just compare how easy the far-right gets away with even killing people at protests vs. how anything remotely left-wing is treated) but also in their press statements (e.g. see here for a police lie that activists had set a door knob under live electricity: https://taz.de/Polizei-Falschmeldung-ueber-Tuerknauf/!561005...) or at court.
The worst thing is many people do not realize this and treat police as "privileged sources", especially as many media outlets directly copy police press statements as facts instead of sending their own people to monitor and cross-check - because having "boots on the ground" costs money that too many outlets don't have any more.