What Is Up With The Police?

I swear, I am having deja vu moments daily reading about the police beating up the OWS/99% protesters across this country. Back in the Vietnam protest era, it was mostly a generational gap argument. But these current protests span age, gender, race and creed. And the police unions are part of the target of elimination by the 1%, so it is really, really difficult for me to understand the police "rage" that is apparent and directed at the protesters.

Courtesy of the Milwaukee-Wisconsin JS:

Photographer Kristyna Wentz-Graff was covering the rally, which began at noon in a plaza beside UWM's student center. The group left campus on E. Kenwood Blvd., marching westbound in the street and on the sidewalk, chanting and carrying signs.

[snip]

"I can tell you that no one at MPD had any idea (Wentz-Graff) was a journalist until she arrived here at the police station," Schwartz said. "She never identified herself as a journalist to officers."

[snip]

"At no time did Kristyna Wentz-Graff ignore any commands by any officer," Kaiser said. "She came upon the scene to do her job as a photojournalist. She was clearly not part of the protest. She was wearing her Journal Sentinel photo press credential. She was carrying photography equipment while taking photographs of police making arrests when she was grabbed by a police officer and handcuffed. Her arrest was completely uncalled for and violates the First Amendment. No reason for her arrest has been provided."

Then there is this from the San Francisco Chronicle:

A car struck two Occupy Oakland protesters tonight as they marched with a crowd along Broadway, and an angry mob surrounded the car as emergency workers tended to the injured.

The driver, who was not identified, sat in his silver Mercedes-Benz sedan after the 7:30 p.m. incident while hundreds of people screamed at him through his closed windows.

BART police officers who were guarding nearby transit stations responded, questioned the driver and several witnesses, then let the driver leave the scene at 11th Street and Broadway in his car.

Although the tone of violence has lessened since the Oakland police shot a projectile and dramatically injured Iraq Veteran Scott Thomas Olsen, (see video here), I still have no understanding of the police, part of the 99%, and their anger at the 99%.