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The rock is what your body armor, helmet and face guard are for; the bayonet is for use when any body gets within arms reach with the intent of doing harm.
Modern firearms and ammunition are designed to penetrate and inflict significant damage to tissue and organs if they are hit and to keep going on to the next object in line until the projectile meets the proverbial immovable object.
The wounds inflicted by modern weapons, if they don’t cause almost immediate death will require a major trauma unit and major surgery to save a life if even possible.
The genius of a bayonet is that the force can be variable; you can slash or punch straight through and give it a twist to cause death; or you can apply just enough thrust to inflict a relatively minor wound that will require a few stitches, but is sufficient to take your opponent out of the fight.
The application of force is a science that needs to be applied correctly. If a three year old child is throwing a tantrum you don’t beat the child with a baseball bat, you turn the child over your knee and and apply about three or four reasonable whacks to their bottom and let them know their behavior is unacceptable.
The legal fallout is the province of lawyers and courts; considering the fact that the mob has already broken laws and committed various crimes against persons and property, I would hope that the people responsible for disspursing the mob would be on reasonably firm legal ground.
Contrary to what president Obunghole said during the election campaign, the bayonet is still a primary weapon of (can be) less than lethal force for crowd and mob control.
Generally speaking a mob or a group of rioters are not trained to deal with a bayonet advance, the ones in the front of the line will go to great lengths to get out of the way; once a few minor jabs and slashes have been delivered.
Trust me, the mob WILL move because their only other choice is to escalate, and at that point we lock and load and people start to die.