...why would I expect police work to be associated with protests?
That is something I would expect, as the grandparent indicates, in the USSR. I don't expect it in the United States.
That is something I would expect, as the grandparent indicates, in the USSR. I don't expect it in the United States.
You may get tons of warm fuzzies thinking about OWS, but it still involved thousands of angry people gathering in one place, which is not something any reasonable person expects the police to be wholly ignorant of.
See Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Oakland#Protestor_conduc...
Or do they do striaghtforward police work, provide a detail of officers at protests and counterprotests just in case anything gets out of hand, and generally behave reasonably?
There is a very far divide between "wholly ignorant" and "actively subverting." There is also a far divide between that and "sharing information on what to expect."
See also: undercover police excesses in the UK and US, including having children with activists to maintain cover.
According to the documents Naomi Wolf (your link!) cites, this is pretty much what happened. Try reading them for yourself instead of ignorantly complaining about "propaganda".