Michael Noire
Police are ethically supposed to be protecting people. When the people need to be protected from the police, they aren't police any more.
It's a part of who they are sadly.
Firstly, not all cops are scum, in fact I would bet most patrolmen are actually perfectly fine people, but the institution itself is bad and rightfully has a terrible reputation.
I mean, culturally speaking, the Police are super militarized. Their ethos should be about supporting the community and enforcing the law. Instead, looking at them these days, they're all about
fighting crime and going to
war, against terrorists, drugs, crime, whatever.
Their crime prevention measures designed at working with the community to prevent and reduce crime pale in comparison to their measures to fight and stomp and suppress any actual crime, a tactic which frequently involves the public at large.
Crime is the enemy, not a symptom of a societal problem so instead of trying to fix the problem they instead are trained to
fight the enemy. Since the public are naturally linked to crime, the public at large also tends to become to enemy. Such a small shift, from helping communities and preventing crime to fighting it, has lead to a drastic cultural shift over time which makes the police force now more of an oppressive boot of the law designed to kick and beat the public and society rather than help and protect it.
Me thinks this is all nice and dandy for those whom who benefit from a boot on the neck of those who are dissatisfied with how things are. Less uppity malcontents trying to ruin their nice status-quo.