Are protesters rioting and violent?
Executive summary
Protests across 2024–2026 have surged in frequency, driven by a broad set of causes, and the majority are described by reporting as dispersed and largely nonviolent; nevertheless, episodic violence — both by some demonstrators and, far more consequentially in some contexts, by state forces or police — has occurred and shaped public perception [1] [2] [3]. In short: most protesters are not rioting, but violence is present in a minority of events and can be amplified or reframed by state actors and media narratives [2] [4] [5].
1. A sharp rise in protest activity — but not a uniform rise in rioting
Open-source counts show protest activity in the United States climbed markedly in the period since 2017, with one analysis noting a 133% increase from 2017 to 2025 as movements from anti‑ICE actions to No Kings demonstrations mobilized broad participation; that increase reflects higher turnout and more sites of mobilization rather than an across‑the‑board increase in violent tactics [1]. Independent monitors such as ACLED and university research guides exist precisely to disaggregate event types — distinguishing nonviolent demonstrations from violent or destructive incidents — and their tools make clear that “more protests” is not the same as “more rioting” [2] [6].
2. Data and methodology matter: what counts as violence?
Organizations that track protest dynamics emphasize careful coding of actors, fatalities, and incident types, because the presence of images of clashes or a small number of destructive acts can skew perceptions of an entire movement; ACLED and research guides stress real‑time, event‑level coding to avoid conflating peaceful marches with isolated altercations [2] [6]. Academic work shows that state repression, police tactics, and isolated protester violence interact in complex ways to change protest size and behavior, so raw counts of “violent days” without context can mislead [4].
3. In practice: most U.S. demonstrations remain nonviolent, but flashpoints exist
Reporting on U.S. mobilizations in 2025–26 characterizes much of the activism — from trans health rallies to anti‑administration No Kings days — as broadly dispersed and nonviolent, even as specific events produced confrontations and arrests in some cities [1] [7]. Monitors such as ACLED’s U.S. crisis work provide subnational snapshots that show many large demonstrations proceed peacefully while a subset involves clashes or property damage; those episodic incidents often dominate headlines and can create a disproportionate public impression of widespread rioting [2] [7].
4. Who is violent — protesters, police, or both? Contexts diverge
Scholarly studies and datasets underline that protest violence can be perpetrated by a small proportion of demonstrators, by police, or by third‑party actors, and the resulting dynamics differ: state violence sometimes provokes escalation, while isolated protester violence can prompt crackdowns that broaden confrontations [4]. Separately, mapping projects documented more than 1,200 killings by police in 2025 in the United States, a fact that complicates simple narratives that solely blame protesters for violence in street confrontations [3].
5. Global contrasts: in some countries the real violence is state repression
International reporting shows starkly different realities outside the U.S.: in Iran and elsewhere, mass demonstrations have been met with lethal force by security services, with human rights groups documenting dozens to thousands of deaths and authorities explicitly labeling dissent as rioting to justify crackdowns — an example of how the “rioter” label can be weaponized by states [5] [8]. Global trackers and think tanks stress that effectiveness and consequences of protests depend heavily on state response and the international context [9] [10].
6. How to read headlines and footage: eyeballs amplify exceptions
The visual vividness of clashes — fires, broken windows, images of brutality — travels faster than the steady scenes of peaceful marches, which is why media and social platforms often amplify moments of violence and create impressions of pervasive rioting even when event‑level data show most demonstrations are nonviolent; researchers recommend relying on coded datasets and careful local reporting rather than isolated viral clips [6] [2] [11].
Conclusion: measured verdict
Empirical monitoring and contemporaneous reporting indicate that the dominant pattern of protest in recent U.S. cycles is mass mobilization with a largely nonviolent character, albeit with a meaningful minority of events featuring clashes, property damage, or arrests; meanwhile, in other countries the principal violence is state‑directed and lethal, and labels of “rioter” are sometimes used by authorities to justify repression — therefore the truthful answer is nuanced: most protesters are not rioting, but protest landscapes include pockets of violence and powerful actors who escalate, document, or reframe those moments [1] [2] [4] [5] [3].