What would you do if you were driving in your car and, without notice, found yourself surrounded by protesters? Suddenly, people you don’t know, who don’t know you, put their bodies in front of your car. Others started banging on your car. Some took objects and struck your windshield in an effort to break it. Your doors were locked, but people were trying to open them.

Your car was being demolished in front of your eyes. What would happen to you if this violent group managed to get into your car? Would they pull you out and beat you? Kill you?

There are some basic principles that apply under normal circumstances. You don’t do harm to a person in defense of property. Lives matter more than things. But then, why are these random people entitled to destroy your car because they’re enraged in general? And it’s not just property, but a step away from your life.

Maybe they would assist you in exiting your vehicle to have a nice chat with you about your views on systemic racism, but are you prepared to take that risk? You were just going to deliver some canned goods to the food pantry and here you are, making life and death choices because there are a couple bodies who are standing in front of your car. You decide to inch forward, giving those bodies plenty of opportunity to get out of the way, to avoid any harm so that they can move on to the next car and you can drive away.

Except they’re not moving. They push their bodies harder against your hood, your grill. There’s a guy standing on your roof, and he’s not getting off. They will not move. They will not stop. They grow even more violent, more outraged, at your not acquiescing to their attack.

What do you do?

But what if you’re a cop, and the car is your cruiser, and the mob has penned you in, made it impossible for you to move forward without running them over? Someone is going to dictate what happens at that moment, and the cop’s choice is whether it’s the mob or him.

New York Attorney General Letitia James started an inquiry. Police Commissioner Dermot Shea was asked after the choice was made, after the cruisers drove into the crowd of people blocking its way, whether the police officers’ actions violated the department’s use of force policy.

“Was that in violation of your use of force policy?” [AG James] asked.

“No,” Shea answered, adding, “Our internal affairs bureau investigated this information and preliminarily we have an accounting of that incident where we have officers in a situation where they’re essentially being penned in by protesters.”

The question posed was a curious one, reflecting either ignorance or bias. The actions in the video had nothing to do with use of force. It had to do with the cops being held hostage by the mob. On a normal day, cops react poorly to being challenged. What are the chances the cops will allow their ability to move to be dictated by the crowd?

James then asked, “So in that particular instance, is it your testimony that … the police car was an appropriate use of force?”

“I’m not saying that the police car was used as a use of force,” he added. “The officers were set upon and attacked, and thankfully they were able to get out of that situation with, to my knowledge, no injuries to anyone.”

At another time, people would move out of the way of a vehicle to avoid being harmed. At another time, people would move out of the way of a police cruiser with its lights flashing. This was not one of those times. And while the mob wasn’t trying to rip open the doors of the cruiser, a flaming object was tossed on top of the vehicle. Other cars had been destroyed. Molotov cocktails had been thrown, which cannot be so easily trivialized.

The congressional representative from Queens reacted on twitter.

NYPD officers just drove an SUV into a crowd of human beings. They could‘ve killed them, &we don’t know how many they injured.

NO ONE gets to slam an SUV through a crowd of human beings.@NYCMayor these officers need to be brought to justice, not dismissed w/“internal reviews.”

The cops most assuredly could have killed them. They could have moved out of the path of the cruisers. Is that victim blaming? Is the right answer dictated by whether you’re on Team Mob or Team Police? Certainly the police have engaged in an enormous amount of questionable violence against protesters, and have generated much of the outrage shown them. The rioters and looters haven’t done themselves proud either, but that’s no excuse for police misconduct and brutality. The cops aren’t rioters and looters, and they don’t get to justify their own outrageous conduct by the outrageous conduct of others.

But what should they have done, let the mob dictate to the cops or drive into the crowd and, perhaps, kill people? While it’s fortunate that no one was injured, that’s pure luck. Their choice isn’t helped by a fortunate outcome, but by the reasonable expectations of the consequences of their choice.

For many, the answer seems simple. There is justified outrage in the streets. They hate cops (ACAB has become widespread) and, well, the cops lose just because they’re cops and everybody on one side hates cops. But if you don’t hate cops, don’t want to eliminate police from our society and believe that while they are in dire need of reform, are unprepared to trade the police for the mob, then the cops were forced to make a choice, to take charge of their situation or let the mob decide for them.

In the scheme of protest, of outrage, of occasional theft and potential harm to random people who have the misfortune of being in a car suddenly surrounded by protesters, choosing to use one’s body to stop, to block, a vehicle tempts physics. There are a great many ways to express outrage, to protest, that don’t involve harm to collateral innocents and dares to a 2000 pound missile to run through you.

The choice to use one’s body to block a car is not merely wrong, but damn foolish. The choice to do so when it’s a police cruiser is begging to be run down. Protest all you want, but dying for a viral video seems like the worst possible choice. And if you challenge a car with your body, there’s a damn good possibility that you’re going to die.