Reminds me of the escalation seen in the Ukrainian Maidan, went from some heavy handed policing to non-lethal rounds (eg: teargas / beanbags) to BBs to snipers and live firing on crowds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg_CLI3xY58&list=PLh9mgdi4rN...
It was now a revolt against произвол, an idea of arbitrariness tinged with tyranny, helplessness in the face of power, the feeling that the powers that be can do whatever they want to you, and you are helpless, that you are being treated as a plaything, as a thing and not as a human being, as an object and not as a subject, and the Maidan became a revolt against произвол, it became an insistence on being treated as a person and not as a thing, as a subject not as an object, and they began to call themselves on the Maidan the revolution of dignity.
It seems that Yanukovych (Ukraine's corrupt Russian puppet leader) was counted on the fact that if you shock people this way (brutally beating up protestors), not enough to kill people, but enough to terrify them, the parents will freak out and they will pull their kids off the streets... (after many people's children were beaten) Suddenly you have parents joining their children on the streets, and that is the moment that creates the revolution...
At the risk of inflammation: sounds like Black Lives Matter.
Once it gets to that point, there's no reason not to immediately organize a military response.
And yet history shows many (dozens?) of instance where that's exactly what most people thought.
The way to defeat a dictator is not by painting yourself as a defenseless victim. (That is only useful as the first step to gain support.) The way is to show him you have a greater potential for violence than him and if he doesn't flee, he will be punished (usually killed, sometimes tortured first).
They had huge numbers and if at least some police were on their side they were on the right track to escalating the threat of violence. At some point the dictator would have either broken or the violence would have materialized. But that requires the good people to keep their weapons and use them.