Wow, the police sound like awful racist people who never do anything good or right.
Most workers are only as good as their supervisors and managers get them to be, and many of our laws are written to prevent the small portion of the public, or the small portion of a particular group, that acts irresponsibly from doing harm.
History matters. Police departments have historically had a role in enforcing racism and a class system that was/is supported by the mainstream. A typical example is the suburban police departments that stopped nearly every black or brown person who entered their all-white town.* Many of our laws, such as laws against marijuana or loitering are intended to harass, or allow police harassment of, minorities, poor people and people who are different (gays, hippies, punks etc).
Even though bad cops may be a small portion of the force, they can have a huge impact on police-community relations and do a lot of damage to individuals or targeted groups. The angry response of the community to the Rodney King and Ferguson incidents were a result of a long history of police abuse of a community and the cost of the resulting damage is high enough to justify an investment in prevention.
A lot of people go into police work because they have an unhealthy desire for power over others or disrespect for segments of the community. I don't know if this is still accurate, but long ago I read that it was impossible to create psychological tests to differentiate criminals from the police because they tested as being the same type of person. Perhaps most significantly, a small portion of a police force can infect the culture of a whole department and cause the spread of their bad practices.
Oakland Riders
"....The Washington Post described them: "At the high point of their careers, the so-called "Riders" were considered the best and the brightest,
veterans whom rookie police officers tried to emulate. Their specialty: bringing in reputed drug dealers in record numbers from the crime-plagued streets of West Oakland.[2]
The alleged abuses came to light after a rookie officer, just 10 days on the job and fresh out of the police academy, resigned and reported his former co-workers' activities to the police department's Internal Affairs Division.
A string of incidents of police misconduct by the group of four Oakland PD officers known as "the Oakland Riders" came to light.[3] 119 people pressed civil rights lawsuits for unlawful beatings and detention, ultimately settling for
$11 million with an agreement that the Oakland Police Department would implement significant reforms...."
Allen v. City of Oakland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rampart Scandal
"The LAPD Rampart scandal refers to widespread corruption in the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (or C*R*A*S*H) anti-gang unit of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Rampart Division in the late 1990s.
More than 70 police officers either assigned to or associated with the Rampart CRASH unit were implicated in some form of misconduct, making it one of the most widespread cases of documented police misconduct in United States history. The convicted offenses include unprovoked shootings, unprovoked beatings, planting of false evidence, framing of suspects, stealing and dealing narcotics, bank robbery, perjury, and the covering up of evidence of these activities.[1]
...The Rampart scandal resulted in more than 140 civil lawsuits against the city of Los Angeles, costing the city an estimated
$125 million in settlements.[4]
..As of 2014, the full extent of Rampart corruption is not known, and
several rape, murder and robbery investigations involving Rampart officers remain unsolved...."
Rampart scandal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
*September 10, 2005
"
Police in Suburbs Blocked Evacuees, Witnesses Report
By GARDINER HARRIS
Police agencies to the south of New Orleans were so fearful of the crowds trying to leave the city after Hurricane Katrina that they sealed a crucial bridge over the Mississippi River and turned back hundreds of desperate evacuees, two paramedics who were in the crowd said.
The paramedics and two other witnesses said officers sometimes shot guns over the heads of fleeing people, who, instead of complying immediately with orders to leave the bridge, pleaded to be let through, the paramedics and two other witnesses said. The witnesses said they had been told by the New Orleans police to cross that same bridge because buses were waiting for them there.
Instead, a suburban police officer angrily ordered about 200 people to abandon an encampment between the highways near the bridge. The officer then confiscated their food and water, the four witnesses said. The incidents took place in the first days after the storm last week, they said....."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/national/nationalspecial/10emt.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0