Quote Originally Posted by Joreth View Post
Red, Im a former felony level prosecutor. I can say with authority that there are many, many, many bad police officers out there. In the overwhelming majority of cases that I prosecuted where force was reported (so often not reported) the police used force in excess of what was even remotely reasonable. Eventually, I was promoted into a unit that prosecuted police officers. We were never short of work.
But "never short of work" doesn't say anything about the number of good police officers there are. How many cops are there in the US, and how many have come to your attention? Yes, there are criminals in the police force. Do we treat police officers as vermin because of that? What if you found that there were large numbers of petty thieves among supermarket cashiers? Do you treat them every single one of them as guilty until proven innocent? Certainly not. Why should the police be any different?

Now, I do see your argument about *covering for* the bad cops. But just because Fred saw Joe use excessive force doesn't mean that Fred, when he uses force, was going beyond the acceptable limits. Fred's actions should be evaluated separately from everyone else's, and on the usual principles of criminal trials. Is that too much to ask?