One of the problems we have now in our society is the whole “we ought to have a law” mentality. It has made almost everything a police matter and as you said, you are inviting a paramilitary force to solve your problem.
My family will no longer call police for almost anything. There is almost no problem that can’t be made worse by injecting the police.
No, that’s the opposite extreme. The police do have value, great value, in performing a paramilitary role.
There are just far too many criminals, mentally ill, and agitators for the public to routinely have to deal with on their own. Add to that almost everybody at some point needs external protection because they cannot adequately defend themselves.
Add also that police are persistent, and will pursue crimes in which the villains escape, in a determined fashion, as well as remember who did what to whom.
Also that they are in effect, officers of the courts, which exist to objectively mediate conflicts to prevent bloodshed and feuds, as well as provide extended punishment to offenders.
This all goes back to the judgment of the citizen, about when they decide to involve the police in circumstances. The public today is too relaxed about summoning them, which is asking for trouble.
Most people should, in their lives, rarely have any need to ask for the police. In most cases, when most people do summon the police, they have a good reason to do so.
But in the original article, a woman saw a dog under a car, so she called police. When an officer arrived on scene, he could have asked her what she expected him to do about it?
Had he been more thoughtful, he might have called animal control, who are equipped to do such a thing; but his choice, as a paramilitary, was to deal with it in a paramilitary manner.
To put that screw in its screw hole with a hammer.