Australia

There’s not a lot of point in an event like this when emotions are high and reactionaries are high on the “heroism”.

But “all cops are bastards” remains true.

In capitalist society the role of the police is to protect the private property of the ruling class and to serve their interests.

Since their inception that has been the role of the police force in Australia, beginning with the genocide of aboriginal people in order to secure land for settlers.

In the 80s and 90s we saw how little the role of the police force is in “protecting and serving the people” as they formed gangs to hunt down, murder, then cover up the murder of queer people.

Can you really justify the role police play in keeping workers from striking and making meaningful change in workplace reform, or in housing where the police use violence to evict the poor in order for the rich to buy up all the houses?

We haven’t even touched on mental health. Why in general are the police called when there’s a mental health crisis? Where are the counsellors, psychiatrists and social workers? Why was someone with schizophrenia allowed to get to the point where they became a threat to the public?

The actions of the individual are justified in this situation. Incidentally police do some good actions sometimes by virtue of the fact that they’re currently the ones with the power, weapons, and authority to act in these circumstances.

But there are much better ways of organising a society that don’t create such disparity, and there are much better ways of protecting communities that aren’t primarily centred on using violence against the poor to protect the greed of the rich.