In the cases you've "seen and heard" (but never experienced personally), do you know the facts of the entire situation? They could be legit, or they could not be.
Are there lousy cops? Sure there are. Are there lousy citizens? Sure there are.
Almost every encounter I've ever had with the police has left me with a positive impression, and I used to seriously consider it as a career.
But as you say, times have changed.
As law enforcement, you hold the power of people's entire future in your hands; you also hold the power of life and death. The simple fact is that when that sort of power has been bestowed upon you, you need to maintain the utmost integrity at all times, and never let it slip. Mistakes may happen, but your integrity must never be compromised.
The problem, as I see it, is the extreme us-versus-them attitude that has taken root in this country. Reading LEOs talking to one another on forums for law enforcement personnel illustrates this attitude very effectively; in the end, you say it should be transparent to the citizen, but in reality it's not.
The simple fact is that abuses of power occur by law enforcement all the time, and law enforcement is second to none in protecting their own.
Now that problem, as near as I can tell, is
transparent to law enforcement, because I firmly believe that almost everyone in the field believes that they're doing the right thing, that they're the good guys.
However, police are instrumental in enforcing the tyranny of the majority, judgement in absentia; that entire arm of jurisprudence exists to enforce the law, which is assumed to be just. They exert the full power of the machine of law, and the only check to the justness of a law comes later in the process with the courts.
So far, so good.
The problem is that when civil disobedience, minor crimes, or even asserting ones rights is looked at through the lens of 'us versus them', you get scenes like this:
... or this:
... which are clear breakdowns in integrity, wherein the officer or officers perpetrating the abuse felt completely in the right for their actions at the time. This, combined with what feels like a system bent on gross overcriminalization of the populace (There oughta be a law!) at any expense, leads to a breakdown in the public trust. When police officers threaten, assault, beat, arrest, or otherwise bully people for videotaping them in the course of their duty, for offering to be a witness for a suspect, or even for such uncivil things as calling them names or refusing to desist from a behavior they're otherwise legally engaged in, how can there be an environment of mutual trust?
Trumped up charges, illegal searches, etc, will come out in the subsequent investigation. And the cops can get into some real trouble for it.
... and in some cases the victim of the illegal search, trumped up charge, or the far more common snowballing of charges, can watch their arresting officer get in 'real trouble' while comfortably ensconced in jail, where they won't be released despite the illegality of the initial search.
Travel alot and want to take a gun with you, then YOU should know the laws of the state you are travelling to regarding guns. It's as simple as going to the NRA website.
In a mobile society, with highly localized laws and the mantra 'ignorance of the law is no excuse', it's not the big ones like gun laws that I'm worried about, but things like whether my pocket knife may be considered illegal (They are in some places), or whether that careful U-turn that I just made was legal in the particular residential area and street I was on, while visiting some other part of the country.
When police refuse to use the considerable discretion they're allotted and choose to write a ticket, charge someone, detain someone until they can get a dog to come 'alert' at the squirrel you ran over on the way home so they can rip all the seat cushions and bags out of your vehicle and leave them strewn on the ground ... they do their cause a massive disservice.
When they lie and badger and cajole to obtain a confession, or when they use people's words out of context as evidence of something that they never meant to say, they lead citizens to discussions like this.
I'll emphasize that almost all of my encounters with law enforcement have been relatively positive. I did have an issue last year where I was issued a ticket for 55 in a 35 ... the second ticket I'd received in my life* ... based on a very bad visual estimation. (I was making a 90 degree left turn in my RX-8 at 35 ... I'm sure it looked fast, but it was perfectly safe and, as far as I am aware, legal...) I was polite and courteous, wished him a nice night, and I'm sure my premiums are going to go up significantly due to his error in judgement.
That's the thing... I'm sure the officer went about his night and never thought twice about it... he's just doing his job. He probably felt good about it, in fact. He's protecting the drivers in his area from people going too fast, and that was just one brief interaction in all the work he had to do that night--But to me, it's a significant economic penalty: $400 out of my pocket, after all the fees are tacked on, an indeterminate but likely significant increase in my insurance premiums over the next four years, a blemish on my otherwise relatively spotless record ... you get the drift.
While there are problems with the legal system (far outside the scope of what we're talking about here),
The problem is that as long as you're acting as the arm of the legal system, you're on the hook for its problems as well.
Remember, no matter what anyone tries to say about "if you're not guilty of anything, why can't I search you", you have the right to refuse a consent search. I don't care how "guilted into it" you're being, either the police have articulable PC for a search, or they have a warrant. Without a warrant and no articulable PC, cops are only discrediting any case they try to make.
It shouldn't come to that; there's a double standard that has come to exist to fill the gap between 'innocent until proven guilty' and 'the person is probably guilty of something, even if I don't know what.'; in the end, it doesn't matter how many "false negatives" or wrongful arrests occur,
"if it saves only one child..."
In you don't want to have faith in law enforcement, thats fine. Just refrain from calling them if you get into a car accident or have your house robbed while you aren't home; lest they show up and beat you.
That's not the line of a public servant; in 'public service', it should be: "We're here to help if you need us, even if you think you won't."
Im being facetious, but lets be honest here. You're taking some extreme examples of bad cops and the potential they can do, and painting with a VERY broad brush.
I don't necessarily think the brush is that broad, nor the painting unwarranted. I don't know if I've missed it somewhere along the line, but I don't recall anyone saying or implying that all or many police officers are bad in any way... but the bad cops can do irreparable damage to the life of a law-abiding concerned citizen, and the good cops will often defend their power to do it, if not defend them directly.
Look, law-enforcement groupthink is a known phenomena, and I KNOW that there's training that covers it; it doesn't obviate the need for law enforcement in any way, nor does it imply any sort of lack of care or consideration on the part of the officers in question, but it's unwise to categorically deny its existence or defend it without question.
... or something like that.
-Fox
* - The first ticket I received was for 40 in a 35 on my motorcycle, by radar. I absolutely did it, I had absolutely no problem paying the ticket and taking the hit. People had been complaining about motorcycles 'racing' through my neighborhood, and so they had a few moto-cops scattered around, and one tagged me on my way home from work. Mea culpa, period.
