Both applicable definitions at the other poster's link literally have a form of the word 'violence' in them.

The word “or” separates the qualifying conditions in the definition linked. Disorder or a disturbance of the peace is enough to qualify an incident as a “riot”. Given the quoted incidents were illegal acts that required authorities to spend time and money to respond to, they were of course a disturbance of the peace, disorderly, and therefore were indeed riots.

And you don't think it's ridiculous to equivocate between events where a police officer is grievously beaten and a woman is trampled and events where people sit quietly and get arrested because some sergeant decides it is disorderly for them to sit there without a permit.

You can see the fear in Duckworth's eyes when she comes up with her baby strapped to her chest and waves at the crowd.

I agree with you. It's a word that means different things to so many people.

It frustrates me when the media tries to make a big distinction between protests and riots. Those words have become emotionally charged.

Rather, if we're going to have discussions about this, we should be sure to be extra clear about what we're trying to say.

I think it's fairly pointless to debate what the precise definition of a riot is. Rather, I was trying express why people see this as different from the "sit-ins" (another wishy washy word) the the poster above you talked about.

The reason that I find Wednesday's acts worse is because of the violence. And I think that there could be a much more productive conversation off of that pretense, than over what is a riot vs a sit-in.