[chimeracoder]

> I feel we need a familiarity with what responsible policing looks like. To me, the OPs recounting provides that.

The point is that nearly every cop you talk to will sound like OP. That doesn't mean anything about the integrity of them or their coworkers; it just means that they're capable of articulating their own behavior in a way that makes them sound reasonable with no context. That's an incredibly low bar, one that nearly every abusive cop will clear.

To repeat what I said in a separate comment: Having worked extensively in this area, I'll be blunt and say that anytime someone who works in law enforcement says that there are no abuses of power in their workplace, that means either they were so oblivious that they never saw abuses that are occurring around them, or they were so mired in the system that they are incapable of recognizing the abuses of power that they themselves are participating in.

> Past that, I believe that the widespread bad behavior of other agencies is insufficient reason for mistrust here.

On the contrary, that's exactly what "systemic abuse of power" means. It means that the bad behavior is so ingrained in the operations of the system that individuals' actions contribute to its operations, whether or not they recognize or even understand it.

[WarOnPrivacy]

And you may well have the right of it.

I'd agree that federal and state LEO serve their govs, unilaterally and universally. They exist to advance the interests of the party in power and campaign contributors.

As a public-of-individuals, our best interests may get occasionally get served by accident but our actual welfare is never, ever, not-ever the primary focus.

All that said, I still avoid Cops Suck as the default. Broadly speaking: The more local the force, the less certain is the system-serving corruption. You can get to a place with an ethical+competent commissioner/chief/sheriff. Under them, officers can be allowed to focus on being ethical+competent. I have personally witnessed this.

Where those officers might exist, I want to be fair.