It was unclear whether they were trying to protect themselves from their assailants' fists or the television cameras or both.
As the life was being pummeled out of him, Kelly had cried out "Dad!" and "Sorry!" but all his pleas were ignored by the police mob who mercilessly sat on him tasered him and beat him with everything from their gloved fists, to elbows, other body parts and pistol-whipped him with the taser handle.
Beneath me, brightly colored orange and red and blue Koi fish the size of cricket paddles looked up at me from the pond, their fist-sized mouths wide open in hopes of food.
Others, dangling from electricity pylons, thrust their fists into the air.
"They go crazy," said Nanda Cerquira, owner of Tio Pepe, where patrons were leaping from their seats, pumping their fists in the air and shouting last Wednesday afternoon as Real Madrid and Manchester United battled in European Cup competition on the bar's motion-picture-sized screen.
Friends from the gym stood in circles and pumped their fists, girlfriends from hen nights turned inwards and did "Beyoncé" to each other, and boys from the Beyhive screamed every word into each other's faces.
Big finale with all the rockers on stage, led by Meat Loaf, Miley Cyrus and her gang of dancing LOLcats (gotta think YOUNG), singing the aria from Les Miserables and ending with their fists in the air as the rear curtain rises to reveal the cast of High School Musical in red-army choir uniforms.
Some tourists pumped their fists and whooped from atop double-decker sightseeing buses as the protesters cheered back.
You may not always see the people for the production design in these, but when you do — as in "Romeo + Juliet" and sometimes here — they spring forth from their fantastical milieus like fists.
