Without taking a meaningful position here, how do you differentiate between the individuals on the street who are generally poor and powerless (and if you take them at their word, disenfranchised), while the police are backed by the institution, carrying military weapons, and legally empowered to use violence to stop them?

This is a question I have struggled with, so I'm curious what your take is, and that of the rest of the community here.

In the platonic ideal, of course, the protesters would be peaceful and affable people. On the other hand, in a platonic ideal, nobody would need to be protesting in the first place.

Similarly, in the platonic ideal, police would be kind and friendly, but of course, then they wouldn't be defending the state from these individuals in the first place.

So, where does that leave us?

tl;dr: Does the situation change if we frame the protestors as "mostly poor, powerless and disenfranchised" and the police as "mostly powerful, backed by the largesse of the state and largely militarized" in this specific time and place?

[edit] In a way, I would argue that the police are entrusted with using violence - in the right time and place - and are rarely held accountable for failing to do so. It's not the police' use of violence people are protesting in general (after all this is the monopoly they have been granted), but rather their lack of accountability for failing to do their jobs in the instances that they do.