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I think you bring up some good points. Cops probably aren’t really getting more aggressive than they’ve always been, and in fact, with the high profile brutality cases, some of them at least are surely trying to be more careful. However, with the preponderance of surveillance cameras and cell phones, the public is just more likely to find out about these cases. What’s amazing to me is that the cops know these cameras are out there, and we still see some “bad actors” who step over the line anyways. In the story from yesterday, the officers seemed to realize this and decided to go get the phone to cover-up their own wrongdoing.

As for whether bystanders stepping into a police stop is more common or not, it may very well be. I don’t think it’s very advisable, since even the gentlest police officer is probably going to get annoyed by that kind of thing. Annoying a guy with a gun and a nightstick who’s already probably got his adrenaline pumping is just not a smart move, in my experience.

However, it seems to me that police officers more and more take the attitude of “us vs. them” when it comes to the public. I’m sure it’s an outgrowth of the increasingly dangerous environment they work in, but the attitude and the impact it has on their behavior is what the public is going to come away with. So it’s no wonder if the public begins to do likewise and starts to band together for protection against abuses of police authority.

Cops today are more blindly aggressive to anyone. It is sociopathic behavior. Today they’ll brutalize a scrawny teenager, a father in front of his kids, a mother pushing a stroller or a frail oldster back-talking them at a traffic stop MORE readily than a rowdy bar patron at a bar brawl.

When the Irish gangmembers in New York City matured a bit and joined the Police way back in the days, did did show considerably more discretion — they were brutal men looking for fights too, but they had a code. They were as tender to old ladies and youngsters as they were brutal to street thugs and toughs. They understood people. The were humane but brutish men. They were tough guys, men, but not too many bullies among them.

Today too many who join the police tend to be insecure, emotionally unstable bullies, petty, latent or near sociopaths wanting to wear a ‘power suit’ of a uniform that allows them to be BIG and POWERFUL, to assert dominion over all. They do not want to be held to any account. It is a motive of being free of responsibility while forcing all to submit to you. God-hood.

The concept of “Cop” has been established in the culture. Grab a badge and uniform and immediately be invincible, beyond account, infallible and powerful. You no longer have to prove it, like the men in blue on the streets of New York once did.

Yes, there are some who join for good motive. But too many not. And the reason that ratio of bad to good has changed is because society has put cops on a pedestal. We not longer hold cops to account in every action they make.

Here’s an example — a man in street clothes tells a man he sees walking along the street to stop and produce ID. The other good people in the vicinity would immediately object to such rudeness. But a cop in uniform does that and who objects? Immediately the poor man is considered a near-criminal, a man under suspicion. Better we should, upon seeing an officer making a such a demand where there is no obvious suspicion of bad action, raise our voice in alarm just as if it was a man in plainclothes.