There you have the timeframe all wrong. Violence and illegal disruption came first - like doxing of agents came before their use of masks. And at this point, planned Antifa presence is so guaranteed, that he might as well send them in immediately instead of first seeing "if they're needed."
Like officials here in Denmark know that no police is needed at a simple and arranged worker's protest, but with certain other ones (always when Antifa is amongst them) police is heightened.
Yeah, here you contact authorities to protest, and it's announced that if you're in the area and happen to look like the antagonists (which would be me), you'll get taken in. The U.S is the softest shiat I've seen, next to the UK.
Libs don't seem to realize no more, how messed up your situation has been for ages. You look up to Scandinavia, but don't want to do what's needed to have a society where only very few feel they need to own a weapon for defense. That's ofc been changing for many with the reported results of mass immigration