Victoria Police has come under fire for more heavy handed tactics that saw officers pepper spray news photographers and an elderly woman injured.
More than 20,000 people watched a live feed of Melbourne's weekend lockdown protest, which descended into chaos on the streets of Richmond after police barricaded Melbourne's CBD and closed down public transport.
Veteran news photographer Luis Ascui, who works for Daily Mail Australia and some of the nation's other top news publications, was ruthlessly targeted by a young officer, who sprayed pepper foam directly into his eyes.
Veteran news photographer Luis Ascui, dressed in white and brown, is targeted by police while covering the lockdown protest on Saturday. Ascui believes police suffer from a culture problem
Police officers arrest another news photographer at Saturday's lockdown protests in Melbourne
Luis Ascui was alongside an elderly woman who got pepper sprayed while on the ground moments have they attacked him
Ascui, who has covered conflicts across the globe, had been positioned next to an elderly woman who was knocked over moments after he was attacked and pepper sprayed in the face as she lay sprawled on the road.
Daily Mail Australia has been told the police response was thrown into disarray when up to 100 dedicated members of the riot squad were caught in the wrong location.
Instead, rank and file officers were left to clean up the ugly protest, which saw about 1500 people confronted by police.
At one point, the crowd rushed police on Barkers Road, Kew, with multiple officers knocked to the ground and trampled.
Five police members had to be taken to hospital, several others were injured and at least one police vehicle was damaged.
While Ascui said it was deplorable police were injured at the protest, he said photographers had the same right to safety on the job as them.
'We are there to do a job as well. I know we're going to get hurt, of course we are, but as a side result, not the direct incursion towards us,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Monday.
Ascui said he had never been targeted by police at any other conflict across the world while working as a news photographer.
'What is the point of getting media accreditation from them if they themselves are not going to respect it,' he said.
While the Police Association has reached out to the photographer, Ascui said no-one from force command had yet contacted him to offer an explanation.
'The culture needs to be changed,' Ascui said.
'I'm sick and tired of everytime something happens to a police person we understand they have a right to go to work safely. Well so do we.'
Luis Ascui had taken his goggles off because his mask had fogged them up. He would later regret the move
Photographers were targeted by police at a protest in Melbourne last weekend
Photographers cop a face full of pepper foam from police on Saturday
Ascui had been carrying three cameras, press accreditation and was wearing a bicycle helmet as protection against projectiles when he was instead attacked by police.
'You can't give me the excuse I didn't look like a press person. Come on. I was carrying three cameras,' he said.
Video captured on the day showed police spraying foam in the direction of numerous photographers, with one arrested on the spot and placed in handcuffs.
Rukshan Fernando, who had more than 20,000 viewers watching his live Facebook stream, was also targeted by police with pepper foam.
The protest had been planned for a week in advance, with organisers once again using encrypted messaging apps to coordinate the march.
Police had hoped to get the drop on organisers and went to extraordinary lengths to stop people congregating in the CBD.
Public transport was halted altogether and a virtual 'ring of steel' implemented in and around the city.
But cunning protesters outsmarted police again, catching them on the hop as they shifted the protest into the narrow streets of the inner city suburbs,
