This works on that hegelian dialectic because there are predictable cycles on how this plays out.

First, over policing and public executions to piss off an already agitated population, with agitators constantly working to prime them to riot.

Second, actions which further piss them off, as conditions get built beyond what would normally be handled in tit for tat low level conflict.

Riots start to take place, with varying levels of sympathy to the rioters, so politicians have the police go lightweight, lightweight to where two things happen: public submission to the mob, and an overall demonstration of the ineptitude of the conventional policing system.

Deep down inside, people know how this gets resolved - counter-mob violence, people's war, opposing faction riots and attacks, or heavy secret policing presence. Lots of hush hush undercover stuff, unmarked cars and vans hauling people away never to be seen or heard from again. Half the time it happens, there is applause.

Then someone demands "peacekeepers" roll in hard to replace inept conventional police, quell rioters, and shut down whatever or whoever is behind the "disappearance and liquidation" operations by shadowy government agencies and vigilante groups.

At that point, welcome to the full-on police state. They will have carte blanche to take down every possible level of resistance simultaneously;

1, any leadership or active combatants from the lower class who managed to survive police, rivals, and the secret death squads.

2, the conventional police and their political leadership are removed, recruited or liquidated.

3, Rival shadow organizations, covert and clandestine operations arms of potentially rival government agencies and political groups, usually get "exposed" then recruited or eliminated by more or less conventional military means. They will all have become active and thus exposed their existence during the civil unrest period, thus making themselves more visible targets for the underlying spy network which comes before the real occupation takeover.