I'm sure everyone has heard of cops doing (and getting away with) things that the rest of us would rightfully be severely punished for. Things like beating up on a person for no reason. Or brutalizing a pregnant woman with a taser. Or shooting two pets of a seven year old child right in front of her. Or shooting a handcuffed man lying on the ground straight in his back and killing him. (Warning: If you're enjoying your day and want it to stay this way, don't watch the video embedded in that last link. Watching it will make you cry with anger. It will make you want to smash things and punch walls. It will make you wish that this cop, and everyone who is trying to excuse his behavior, meets the same agonizing end that his victim did.) Things of this sort happen often, and very few people care. Those acts are a consequence of believing that everyone who the law enforcement is dealing with is by definition a wrongdoer. If you create an environment where cops can get away with beating up on or even killing innocent people, then being a police officer becomes an attractive job for individuals who enjoy beating up on and killing people. Of course, there's violence in our society in general so acts like these will unfortunately happen no matter what. However, when it's police officers doing those things, it is our fault as a society. It happens because, when they use force excessively, we are too lenient, too quick to excuse and rationalize their brutality. This leniency has led to a situation where basically everyone is guilty by default. The cops can arrest whoever they like. There are "catch-all" charges that will basically always stick in court, at least so long as there are no non-police witnesses of the arrest. (Here in New York City, such charge is "disorderly conduct." In Baltimore, Maryland, it is "loitering." Etc.) And the occurrence of situations when non-police witnesses are present is also actively minimized. The state of Illinois has recently made it illegal to photograph or video-record police officers on duty; I'm sure that even in those states where such thing is legal, the police have plenty of informal measures to discourage it.
To everyone who has ever said that only those who have done wrong have anything to fear from law enforcement: whenever police officers mishandle, assault or kill an innocent person, it is your fault. I hope someday you'll get arrested. Maybe that will teach you something.
You say that "It happens because, when they use force excessively, we are too lenient, too quick to excuse and rationalize their brutality" but this perhaps gives the cops on the street an unfair characterization--after all, they're responding in real time to what may be very dangerous conditions, involving many different players and are subject, like anyone else, to some of the problems of the evolutionarily designed mentality that goes along with such a situation. While there are clear lines for everything in retrospect, and while I agree with you about egregious cases, there's a tremendous game of chance going on as well. You just don't know who to trust, who's honest, or who is waiting to stab you in the back. And you're getting paid, if you're a relative rookie, something in the neighborhood of 25K a year and are of a similar age, when everything seems heightened in the first place. To be able to blame everyone for such acts, we have to also first take responsibility for the lack of resources for people in that line of work, too, which, I think you're getting at.
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