"The nobility and integrity of policing has been challenged," Roper said. "As a profession, we have allowed popular culture to draft a narrative which is contrary to the amazing work that so many officers are doing everyday across this nation."
The bitter truth is, the narrative the popular culture is drafting is mostly true. The truth is, the system does not properly punish, curtail, or regulate bad cops. So-called "good cops" lie to protect bad cops. The entire blue line culture is set up as "us against them". Police can violate your civil rights with impunity and then craft whatever offense against you they can dream up, all the while the system backs them up.
If you are not lucky enough to have your encounter with police video taped, then you are screwed. Doesn't matter how innocent you are, doesn't matter how outrageous the circumstance, if there is no video tape, you can never win against the police.
Police have lost the public trust and they have to EARN it back. They can do so by being ruthless by policing themselves and holding themselves to a higher standard. They can do so by being transparent and not letting cops hide behind the Big Blue Wall when mistakes are made. They can do so by getting rid of all the ego-maniac cops that treat citizens like subjects and hold themselves above the Constitution of the US.
I could have a field day posting anecdotes of the above. We are sick of police that hold themselves above the law and treat us like subjects. We are sick of police that abuse the system and abuse their authority. As for this detective, I don't see how us demanding accountability and transparency in Police Use-of-force caused this incident. What is the alternative? To not demand higher standards from police and to allow their abuse of the citizenry and violation of civil rights to continue unabated?
Are we going to accept that argument that the "only" way police can do their jobs is if they can do whatever the hell they want whenever they want without transparency or accountability?
