[freehunter]

Police do have official events to attend. In my state capital there is a yearly event to honor fallen officers where representatives from every police force in the state show up in their dress uniforms for a mass memorial service.

[Zigurd]

They could wear suits. That might remind them they are of the people, and their first priority is to serve the people. They might also consider attending the memorial service for Mike Brown. In suits.

[pbhjpbhj]

They'd have to only attend if off-duty then wouldn't they? One point of police uniform is to identify a person as being a warranted police officer on duty (then there's the appearance of officialdom and the sense of inferiority it breeds in others, the camaraderie, ...). You'd probably need to change the law if you want to allow regular warranted officers to be on duty in civilian clothing, jurisdiction dependent of course.

I don't really understand why you don't want to be able to identify your police officers though - even the UPS drivers wear uniform.

[fnordfnordfnord]

Thank you for making this point. The very last thing we need is to have police disguise themselves as regular folks. It creates a number of dangerous conditions for both the police and the public.

"Who is this random person yelling and waving a gun?" Should I pull over for this random person with flashing lights in their grille?"

It's already bad enough having some traffic enforcement types in unmarked cars or in cars with "ghost" decals.

OTOH, her uniform is very "Aladeen" and while fussing about her uniform is a mostly trivial distraction, having a uniform that is a bit less "Aladeen" would probably short-circuit such criticism. If there weren't more important problems with this person, I would fully support mocking her ridiculous uniform.

[psykovsky]

The ones who work at NSA/CIA wear shorts and suits. I don't think they are reminded of who they are and what their priorities are, by it.