Indeed. And I'd have been with the Civil Rights marchers, not the bombers. And would probably also have received security force attention for this. Which security force was directed from London, under a one-person-one-vote democracy in England.
Initially, back in 1968/69, the security forces that paid attention to the Civil Rights marchers were the NI security forces, which were the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the B Specials. Suspension of Stormont, folding-up of the Governor General's office, and direct rule from Westminster were accomplished in 1972, at which point troops were sent in to do policing, and William Whitelaw was appointed Secretary of State for NI, with sweeping powers. It was only at that juncture that the police forces in NI came under the control of the government at Westminster.
NI was quasi independent up to then.
Both Tory backbenchers and Irish political parties howled at this, but the decision had the broad support of the majority of the British electorate and NI was a part of the United Kingdom, however loosely.
The out of control behaviour of elements in the security forces in the 1970s is one of the reasons we now have parliamentary oversight and RIPA and all the rest of it. The regulatory process should to be supported and itself scrutinised, not waved away with a naive belief that a democratic state is reliably benign to all its citizens.
There were high-minded hopes that transferring control of policing to Westminster would result in policing being conducted on a fair and non-sectarian basis (the Heath government recognised that the RUC and B Specials were a massive problem), a plebiscite on the future of NI was promised, and internees were to be released as part of the imposition of direct rule. Unfortunately it was a signal for extremists on both sides to redouble their military efforts in support of their very different aims, and thwart the will of the majority. On the one hand Unionists were enraged by their loss of local power, and on the nationalist side the Provos were encouraged by what they saw as weakness along with failure to wrap up the state of NI and hand it over to the Republic.
The security forces responded as successive Secretaries of State saw fit. Momentum was never in the hands of the forces of law and order, nobody in Westminster paid sufficient attention to the nuts and bolts of affairs in NI, too many parties thought the morass was their golden opportunity to advance their aims, and the situation degenerated.
There is no such thing as reliable benignity on the part of any state but there sure as heck is no way anyone in any of NI's ghettos could rely on any modicum of justice when under the thumb of either loyalist or nationalist paramilitaries. The wheels of democracy sometimes grind very slowly but in the end they do grind.