Originally Posted By: ILBob
An acquaintance who is in a position to know has said that the tactic the police may use is to arrest as many protesters as they can without much regard for whether they are especially violent or not to clog up the court system so badly that the protesters cannot get bonded out for 3-5 days.

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I still think your best bet is avoidance if indeed the police tactic is to randomly arrest protesters primarily with deliberate aim to screw up the court systems to keep people locked up as long as possible. Since the vast majority of the protesters are not violent and probably are not even committing any crimes, if they ever make it to court they will likely be released without much in the way of bond and eventually the charges will be dropped or dismissed.

I don't want to get into politics, or even really address any one specific protest, but:
If you are at a gathering where this is a possibility, I'll recommend avoiding it. While you may be innocent of any actual wrongdoing, getting caught up in the net in such a way that you could be severely inconvienienced for a few days is something that you may well wish to avoid. Particularly if taking 3-5 days off from your routine could be detrimental to your family (you're not there to pick up Johnny from school tomorrow?) or your employment (miss a few days of work, possibly lose your job or at least some of your vacation days?).