They do have horses though which are scary AF. Once you got a panicked horse playing rodeo with it's rider while chasing you through an alley, you know what immediate panic feels like.

Edit: I found horses worse than the crowd panic, breathing and eye issues after CS gas was released. And despite water cannons engaging is a very dramatic moment, I cannot imagine how it must feel when police give warning shots or even fire live ammo into the crowd (even you don't get hurt). Musst be a completely different level. Luckily I have never been in a situation on which police was even near such an escalation.

So yes, suddenly being trapped inside and facing riot police can be scary. That's by design.

But when you know the details, you can say quite easily, if there is any real danger of violence, or not. Usually it isn't.

But violence can sometimes erupt spontaneously though, so be aware (and fast) if you are close. Also, if you are good with words and kettled in, usually you can convince the police that you are just a tourist passing through (don't ask those, who face the heat, go to the quiet corners and ask someone in charge who does not look stressed out, the low ranks won't let you through, if they have the order to block everyone and their superiors are watching, so rather ask those a little bit higher up, but not too high, or find someone who is not being watched)

The police were so incredibly violent after that, they had total control and very little restraint. And there was local news or police media team ready to catch every act of desperation from the protestors. But very little of the state violence made it to the news. They were singling out people filming, smashing phones, arresting anyone nearby. I remember stumbling into a corner and falling to the street and seeing it already covered in blood and mucus and teeth, and thinking "that's more teeth than one person has in their head wtf happened here."

And then having to come on the internet every day since and hear about the "rioters" and looters and lawlessness and shit.

In the last 20 years who were the most eager to open fire in any situation?

If you wish people to accept or even join your movement, violence seems to be counter-productive:

> For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories.

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10056014-why-civil-resis...

I'm guessing history has some anti-phalanx tactics that may be useful. My naive assumption is that well-organized protestors could choose one spot to focus on and try to break through using sheer numbers and momentum with some uh, ablation at the edges and tip of the spear. This comes with a very high risk of trampling. Veteran Black Bloc practitioners will likely have less naive countermeasures

The Hong Kong protesters are the ones who developed the best tactics.

I have never heard of a 2nd Amendment protest (where most protesters show up armed) being kettled.

Make of that what you will.