Police say the arrest of a pregnant Victorian woman for incitement was done "entirely reasonably", even though the incident looked "terrible".
Ballarat mother Zoe-Lee Buhler sparked a social media storm when she posted video footage of her arrest.
She was handcuffed in her home yesterday after allegedly organising an anti-lockdown protest on Saturday in Ballarat.
Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius has defended the officers who made the arrest, while acknowledging the video looked bad.
"I would be the first to acknowledge the optics, for want of a better description, arresting a pregnant female, it's never going to look good," Mr Cornelius said on Thursday.
"The optics of arresting someone who is pregnant is terrible.
"I've seen the footage, and you know, in my assessment, the members have conducted themselves entirely reasonably.
"They have been polite. They have been professional. When the individual indicated she may be late for an appointment at the hospital, our members actually contacted the hospital and made arrangements for an alternative appointment."
Mr Cornelius is adamant the arrest was justified.
"While this deadly virus doesn't discriminate, we won't discriminate. And we can't discriminate in holding people to account," he said..
"We said we would be coming out and we would be holding people to account and that's exactly what we've done.
"You have to have been on Mars not to know that. I have to say if someone looked me in the eye and I was out dealing with an individual and they said, "'I didn't know I couldn't protest' I have to say, 'come on, don't take me for a fool'."
Ms Buhler insists she did not realise the protest was illegal, given Ballarat's stage-three restrictions, but is also unrepentant.
"I had a bit of a bimbo moment and I actually didn't realise that it wasn't okay," she told 3AW on Thursday.
"I probably wouldn't change anything to be honest.
"If the police had just called me and told me to remove the post I would've done so."
Three men also have been arrested for incitement over a planned Saturday protest at inner-Melbourne locations, including the Shrine Of Remembrance.
Mr Cornelius says police are determined the protest does not go ahead.
"By all means, protest online. Be the keyboard warrior. Say all sorts of unpleasant and uncharitable things about people urging you to behave sensibly, but do it online," he said.
"Don't leave home to do it."
Mr Cornelius joined Shrine officials and the RSL in saying that the site is sacred ground and should never be used as a protest venue.
He added that apart from the three arrests, police had spoken to about 80 people and warned them not to attend the protest.
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Watch out, here come the thought police!
Interestingly enough, those same police did NOTHING about that blm protesting.
Maybe they only go after protests they don't agree with.
Take note NZ, we are next
so, BLM mobs were allowed to gather down town without any social distancing, praised by the media and some politicians and yet this poor brave lady is arrested and handcuffed in front of her children in and her home for wanting to exercise or civil rights on line.? Whoa.Think about that folks. Facial recognition technology is being installed, tracking of your movements, people deplatformed for daring to speak out against the official narrative about the pandemic and yet the rest of us are sleep walking straight into this Chinese Communist Party like social credit system as if it was for our best interests? Wake up people!
What the police did was common sense. We are aware of how this virus spreads and how deadly it can be. Scaremongering and conspiracy talk is just wasting valuable oxygen.
So if you want to protest about how you are being driven into poverty because the private sector economy that sustains you is being destroyed, you are criminal.
However, if you want to protest about how terribly discriminated against you feel because your life is not what you want it to be and you feel jealous and victimised despite all that generations have sacrificed for, to give you an open and free society that allows you to sort your own life out, to be the best you can be but choose to blame everyone else, that's OK.
I'm totally sick of the double standard Western governments are applying to the pandemic. You can really tell that there are few politicians or public servants that have lived outside the state apparatus because of their total lack of appreciation of what it has taken to build our society.