I think that it has to get worse before it gets better. I want to be sunny and optimistic and believe that thoughtful, peaceful, democratic reforms will happen and that people will get what they want from their defenders. But I don't see it happening. I see small-town police forces with armored personnel carriers, bored SWAT teams being called in because someone needs to use their existing budget to justify a bigger one next year/election cycle. I would bet SOME do, and I bet their DA will pander to get them off the phone, ignore complaints and drop all charges against police officers or leave it to Internal Affairs to deal with, so that a cop gets a few months of paid leave, and when no satisfactory (To the department) answer/punishment can be decided, said officer will be back on the streets, maybe in a different part of his jurisdiction, maybe not. Who watches the guardians? Who ensures the guardians commit no sins?Do these people who you confidently say won't get justice go to the press? Do they call the DA's office, get out and advocate and protest, talk to their reps, etc? Or do they tweet about it?
So we need to slip into a pseudo-police state (to call the US an actual police state mocks the situations of millions of people worldwide) in order to get a sort of wake up call? Or are you saying we're already at that point? I think your view is unduly pessimistic, influenced by a selection bias of what the media will show us and what they don't bother to. I think this about most people who hate the police or view all politicians/elected officials/cops/"guardians" as automatically evil. But it's not entirely false. Obviously the situation you describe above happens fairly often. And I don't know what to do about it. Asimov introduced a perfect slave populace and four unbreakable laws -- maybe we could try that.I think that it has to get worse before it gets better. I want to be sunny and optimistic and believe that thoughtful, peaceful, democratic reforms will happen and that people will get what they want from their defenders. But I don't see it happening. I see small-town police forces with armored personnel carriers, bored SWAT teams being called in because someone needs to use their existing budget to justify a bigger one next year/election cycle.
I would bet SOME do, and I bet their DA will pander to get them off the phone, ignore complaints and drop all charges against police officers or leave it to Internal Affairs to deal with, so that a cop gets a few months of paid leave, and when no satisfactory (To the department) answer/punishment can be decided, said officer will be back on the streets, maybe in a different part of his jurisdiction, maybe not.