When peace officers meet peace protesters, the result is sometimes not peaceful. What happens can sometimes be blamed on one side. If a confrontation is averted -- if civil disobedience remains civil -- it is usually because discipline and mutual respect exist on both sides.

That wasn't the case last weekend when 30 to 50 people marched in Oakland from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to a recruiting post near Forbes Avenue and Atwood Street. What occurred was ugly and probably unnecessary, but we aren't prepared to say that one side was entirely blameless. There appears to be enough fault to go around.

Certainly, it seems that the police reacted too aggressively. A Taser stun gun and pepper spray were used on one woman. As a video showed, she was lying on the ground with two officers holding her hands behind her back when a third officer applied the stun gun. Why? The video didn't show the full context but the police have some serious explaining to do.

Such strong-arm tactics actually convey a sign of official weakness. On the face of it, this was a serious breakdown of police discipline, and official investigations need to be diligently pursued.

The use of the Taser was particularly disturbing. We believe Tasers have legitimate uses in dealing with suspects who cannot be subdued in any other way. But in an editorial in February, we warned that the stun guns were dangerous to the point of being lethal and that police should not routinely rely on them to subdue people who do not cooperate. Unfortunately, that seems to be the very thing that occurred in Oakland.

According to James Kleisser, executive director of the Thomas Merton Center, "To respond to messages of peace with outright violence is absolutely outrageous." For our part, however, we will contain our outrage to that already expressed.

Messages of peace? Not to condone the police over-reaction, but it is said the trouble started when a TV cameraman was assaulted by a protester. Any media outlet is going to feel sensitive about that and so should every American. If that incident occurred as alleged, it wasn't just a cameraman who was attacked; it was the First Amendment -- and it was no message of peace being conveyed.

Indeed, if messages of peace were the order of the day, why did some protesters wear masks? The reasons given at a news conference later were strikingly juvenile, ranging from the need to be theatrical, to avoid surveillance by police authorities (but what would they see if everyone was peaceful?) and to show solidarity with the Zapatistas, the Mexican rebels who have not been paragons of non-violence.

Also, why didn't the protesters get a permit for their march? They can argue all they like that one wasn't needed, but Pittsburghers can be forgiven for thinking that this supposedly innocent group of peacemakers were just offering another provocation.

While we are firm opponents of continuing the senseless war in Iraq, we think protests should not become stupid games in which people just act out their frustrations in unproductive and violent ways. That goes for both police and protesters.