Actually I agree with Rumby Bart about your thing with cops, and it's not just based on this thread, but you seem to have a major distrust of all of them to the point of equating them to the murderers/thieves/whathaveyou that they are supposed to protect you from.
I mean I remember once breaking into a highschool in the middle of the night while the cops drove by, looked at me and then kept going. I know cops screw up a lot, but they generally do their job I'm pretty sure.
I don't equate cops with those people at all. Obviously, there are some crooked cops, but I consider them the exception. My concern is more about a unique form of dirtiness that's the normal result of putting people into their position. Their job is highly adversarial, and by and large, you're either one of them, you're a sheep or you're a wolf who's fixing to shoot them in the face.
If you're one of them, which is none of us, then you're always in the right and the law can't apply to you. Tonight, if a cop from Dallas pulls over an off-duty LVPD cop who blows a .15, he's going to give him a ride home. His log is going to show he assisted a stranded motorist. They're brothers and what they do is too important to ruin over a possible lapse in judgement.
As for everybody else, it's his call as to whether or not you get the sheep or the wolf treatment, and they default to wolf; better safe than sorry. Next time you get a ticket, notice how he keeps his hand on his gun as he approaches. You're bad before you're deemed acceptable. For the most part, I think they do a pretty good job of sorting out the good guys from the bad. This isn't usually a problem. Unfortunately, not all of them do, and whether it's because they're assholes or just misread the situation, plenty of people wind up having terrible experiences with bad consequences and nonexistent recourse. Once a situation turns ugly, you're fucked. Your word doesn't mean anything anymore because theirs counts more, and there are always crimes you can be charged with.
Consider
homeless guy in So-Cal who got beat/tazed to death. It wasn't one psycho cop who did it. It was a situation that escalated out of control because of the mentality involved in the people handling the situation. While homicides like that aren't the norm, when they do happen is usually a result of police just being police. I suspect that all the cops that beat him to death thought they were handling the situation perfectly appropriately at the time. From what I've read, most still think that.
As for locale, you will see a very big difference. Most of my younger years were spent watching corruption and scandals dealing with DPD and it's good ole boy system. Factor in Henry Wade's drunk, crooked ass and some good, ole fashioned racism, and it was a pretty dicey scene down here. Believe me when I tell you that nobody in Dallas was ever taught that the police are your friends.
