\nHonestly, Portland disbanded its mounted police team a few years ago because they were really ceremonial/reward duty (and the PPB has never been made whole from late-2000s cuts let alone kept up with growth, though there’s a drive to correct that now). I remember as a kid Philly, which still had institutional memory of ‘60s riots, used them pretty well for (potentially hostile) crowd control, maybe they’ll get brought back for that.
Part of it is untrained or -led infantry will basically always break in the face of a mounted charge even though police horses aren’t trained to trample so if the crowds stood their ground they’d balk
Another part is that anyone caught on camera hurting horses will look *really* bad.
I always wondered what would happen if they tore down street signs as they went and held the shafts out front as a pike line
Anyway friendly reminder the canonical countermoves to elephants are to cut off their trunks, hack out their Achilles’ tendons, and thrust points where their toenails root; also they can’t turn while charging so just form a line and open up for them and attack their rear.
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