RangerDave wrote:
No, it's because of two things: (1) the police departments of numerous major cities have well-documented records of significant abuses; and (2) if you take any group of people, inculcate a culture of in-group loyalty and out-group conflict, give that group significant power, and reduce their accountability for abuses of that power, then widespread dishonest and unethical conduct is virtually guaranteed.
1) In most of those cases, the abuses can be traced back to specific sub-units of the department, or to policies set outside the department (stop and frisk, for example), and in many cases, the "documentation" consists entirely of unsubstantiated allegation, like the hilarious allegation of a Chicago PD "black site" that has marked cruisers out front and releases people within hours. Because we all know that if you have a "black" prison site, the thing to do is advertise its existence and use it to hold people for a few hours and then release them.
2) The idea that there is "no accountability" is absolutely laughable. That's how these abuses come to light, and police are regularly punished for doing those sorts of things. Eventually, it always comes out. The idea that there's a "lack of accountability" arises from a) "abuses" that are not actually abuses and arise from people either not understanding the legal system or imagining it to be something other than it is b) unfairly blaming the police for laws the public disagrees with and C) Unwillingness of the public and press to wait for full investigation or due process prior to abuses being dealt with.
You were "betting dollars to doughnuts" that Zimmerman had really just killed Martin for racial reasons, and you did substantially the same thing regarding Darren Wilson. You've got a bad habit of regarding your own intuition as evidence and sadly, that's a common habit these days. It should not boggle your mind that your fellow citizens have a higher opinion of police than you do; it should cause you to examine your own opinions and your reasons for holding them with a critical eye.