One of the ideas in the theory of government is that it exists to have a monopoly on violence and so forth. It's murder if you do it once, it's not if the state does it a few hundred thousand times.
To an extent, police abusing power and inducing fear in the populace is "working as intended" if it keeps the state in power. But our ideals tend to be such that we think the state should function with greater respect for human rights and individual freedoms.
Also, these wahoos are just a bunch of loose cannons. It's embarrassing the state, not serving it.
Human rights and individual freedoms are not just ideals. They are crucial checks which insure that the government doesn't go "rogue" and abuses the power it's been given.
I wouldn't be too quick to write all cops off as bad. There are definitely a good number of "good" cops. We should make sure not to stereotype policemen because a few of them do something idiotic.
I think a big problem with a lot of government positions or other legal positions are that a noticeable (hence this situation) percentage of the people are power-hungry, or have a chip on their shoulder.
Which results in unspeakable, completely illogical results like this - torturing someone to feel like you have power, and then being able to get away with it because of an obfuscating and broken legal system, filled with good law people and bad law people.
> I wouldn't be too quick to write all cops off as bad. There are definitely a good number of "good" cops.
"Good" and "bad" are very complicated. Nobody is purely good or purely bad. But police corruption was universal in US police departments until 1971, when http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Serpico became the first US policeman to testify against his colleagues, for which he got shot in the head. Up to that point, every US policeman was engaged in a cover-up operation to protect other corrupt policemen. Since then, there are a few exceptions; now, it's only nearly every US policeman who engages in such cover-ups.
But it's important to understand that the people who do this believe that what they are doing is good. The Blue Code of Silence is not merely enforced by intimidation and threats of violence. It's a matter of honor.
"Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."
To an extent, police abusing power and inducing fear in the populace is "working as intended" if it keeps the state in power. But our ideals tend to be such that we think the state should function with greater respect for human rights and individual freedoms.
Also, these wahoos are just a bunch of loose cannons. It's embarrassing the state, not serving it.