Violence, threat of: irrelevant. Of course, if they did suspect violence would occur, it'd be even worse - but that's beside the point, and a completely different matter.

Obviously I don't want parents to keep their children away from lovely parks. I just also don't want parents to bring their children to political demonstrations. At all. (Unless it's some kind of exception that I haven't thought of yet where it would be appropriate; I'm sure that happens, too.) I don't know why the children were there, but the way I read this made it seem like there were a lot of them. And that they were part of the demonstration. Which. Is not cool. I don't like that combination. It's kind of obnoxious. 'Cause I feel like the kids are being used.

And I guess I didn't make it clear that whatever I feel about the parents' decision to bring their children, I'm not trying to justify any of the actions of the police at all.