This is the inevitable result of training police to dress, and think, and act like military, with a "them" and "us" attitude - where "they" are the enemy, to be terrorized and killed without mercy.
Finger on trigger or not, I suspect that if someone had made a move or there had been a loud noise, Janet Reno would have been saying that "We had to kill him in order to save him", just like she did at Waco. BTW, Janet Reno has a lot to answer for, but Ruby Ridge was not on her watch.
I suspect Al Gore might just have lost Florida, California, New Mexico and Texas, although he probably never counted on the latter anyway. This has gotten the Hispanic community stirred up, and it is not just the Cubans. There were Puerto Rican, Mexican, Nicaraguan, Colombian and Salvadoran flags in those street scenes.
Could all the Democratic efforts to register Hispanics in California backfire now? A lot of people are asking whether such force would have been used if the people had not been Hispanic. Things will be interesting.
Jim