About four hundred Greek police officers gathered in Athens on Thursday to the strains of the Beatles song “Let It Be, “carrying a banner that read “No To Violence.”

“We are protesting because we are part of society,” one officer said. “Violence against the Greek police is violence against Greek society. We’re against any kind of violence.”

Student and youth riots have convulsed Greece since the December police shooting of fifteen-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos.

The Thursday police rally took place not long before one thousand students staged their own protest in central Athens. Although some of those protesters threw rocks and oranges at police, there was no police response and the march ended without violence or arrests.