Have a nominee for Asshole of the Week? Send it to us!

One of the most fun things about the quadrennial circuses that are the Democratic and Republican National Conventions is the protesters. They're frequently a rich source of both important social discourse and absolute hilarity. Pick a subject, any subject, and somewhere in America—especially at convention time—someone is protesting it. Someone out there is protesting kittens as you read this.

We're all for protesters, as long as they're not being violent (and as long as they're not protesting kittens). And what seems like too often, police officers unfairly subdue, oppress, and generally take their anger management issues out on protesters—and bystanders and journalists who happen to be in the protest zone. We appreciate the right (and in fact, the duty) of law enforcement to intervene when an event ceases being a protest and starts being a riot. But it seems like police indiscriminately exert force on everyone around the event, regardless of individual behavior. It's a less extreme version of the old "Kill them all, and let God sort them out" philosophy, and it's not cool. And during this week's Republican National Convention, it happened to Philadelphia AP photographer Matt Rourke.

Rourke was taking pictures of some protesters when, seemingly out of nowhere, he had his legs taken out from under him by a member of the St. Paul police. The police proceeded to seize Rourke's camera and arrest him, nevermind the fact that he had press credentials and tried to reason with them that he was a journalist and not a protester. The police also arrested some producers and the host of Democracy Now! (And we don't care that Democracy Now! tends to express left-of-center viewpoints. We'd call bullshit if they did the same thing to someone from Townhall. Well, maybe not—we wouldn't mind seeing Amanda Carpenter in handcuffs at all, but that's another matter entirely.)

When it comes to protests, police should be keeping the peace, not igniting the violence. Especially not against a journalist or photographer, and especially not one from Philly. So, in a display of some brotherly love for our hometown media member, Matt Rourke, we're naming the St. Paul police our Assholes of the Week.

Image Credit: Flickr user Andrew Ciskel