Richard knows that feeling all to well. He threw something. A placard in fact. Threw it like a javelin, he says. An ice pack is being pressed against his back as we speak. He was hit in the kidney with a plastic bullet. Shot in the back. It hit him hard. Spun him around like a top. He will soon be rushed to the hospital when they discover he is bleeding internally. For now we talk.

He tells me he was chalking the sidewalk when he was hit with the gas. He attempted to gather his art supplies but soon collapsed. A medic rescued him and he recovered in time to see his friend being arrested — abducted — by police. He grabbed his friend’s picket sign and tossed it at the police. He says it was stupid. And it probably was.

What was more stupid though was police firing a deadly weapon at him. Plastic bullets have killed before. Its easy to see why. They’re about two inches wide, a bit shorter than a pop-can and when you bang them on a table they make the sound of a hammer. They had clubs, but they shot him.

A few inches to the right and they would have broken his spine. He would have been in a wheelchair or worse and they would have had nothing — nothing at all — happen to them. Because they are anonymous soldiers. They are the police and they will not police themselves. They wouldn’t even give their badges when asked, even though they are legally bound to do so. In a situation like this, how can anyone fault demonstrators for attacking the police? The police have made it so that the only justice comes from vengance. It is their fault, not ours. If they would tell us their numbers we would be able to hold them accountable. But they didn’t.