Götterfunken said:
The fact is you can't say that for sure; the definition if innocent bystander, as I see it, is someone whilst being in the same vicinity of a crime, is not committing, or participating, in the crime itself.
An example is while walking to your local public library to borrow a copy of Plato's 'The Republic' you witness a man hit an annoyingly right-wing child. While witnessing the crime, you remain an 'innocent bystander'. In getting to the crime the policeman use the same footpath you are on. Because you are also on the footpath, and thus it could be construed you are obstructing police entry, the policeman capsicum sprays you, and then bludgeons you out of the way.
Surely you would feel you have been treated untowardly and the police man's actions where impulsive, and his excessive violence towards you was unwarranted. He had only needed to ask you to move—but perhaps at the moment you weren’t able to, and because he was in a rush to get to the crime, he viewed your problem as obstruction of his justice fulfilment—or find another rout.
But that is an entirely different scenario. People do not mass around a fight in the public arena, at least not during the working hours of the day. Also, in that scenario the policeman himself has just witnessed the assault take place and can promptly proceed to restore public order, in which I, as one person, am not preventing him from doing so. Whereas in the Queensland theatre the policeman arrives to find dozens of people milled about two or more individuals disrupting social harmony, and so in order to restore the social harmony as well as prevent serious injury to those involved in the fray, the policeman is entitled to utilise his baton in order to gain acess to the core of the fight.
Such a police reputation also sets a precedent. Now when the police arrive to quel violence, the mob, or those who consider themselves to be justly innocent, will quickly take flight, exposing those involved in the fighting and granting police immediate access to the unruly ones. Also, batons and capsicum spray do not inflict heavy injuries.
On another note, police are very friendly. Often caught without a train ticket and unlucky enough to have police manning the station exits, I just confess my situation "I'm sorry sir, I don't have a ticket, I'm just coming to the library to study". I think it's the 'sir' and my honed, apologetic accent. It really surprises them, after having to deal with ungrateful western suburbs shits all day, and causes them to take pity on me. To what extent the effect of my Labor membership card has, I'm not certain.
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