[brityank]

Now I think they are being trained as some sort of quasi-militarized enforcement squad. The kind of police you have in hard left regimes and/or dictatorships. I think cops are now taught to “over-react” - to do “takedowns” no matter what the situation. This is extremely creepy behavior. This ‘us vs them’ mentality cops seem to have nowadays is also a bit twisted. That’s the attitude in a dictatorship - not in the United States!

Sadly I believe you are right.
I had a talk many moons back with a cop who had been asked to join a SWAT Team in a large town, and both of us had the same opinion back then -- SWAT should only be under State control, not the individual local forces. Make the Governor and Legislature fully responsible for their actions in our neighborhoods, and keep the locals as Peace Officers. (He turned it down.) I'm not a cop, but I've known quite a few from years past and none I knew of were bad apples.

[LibertyLA]

I have friends who are cops - can’t see them doing what this deputy did.

I think you may have a “Farva” here who woke up, was out of control and pulled the trigger. Maybe trying to ‘control’ the situation when he should have just followed the car until it could be pulled over. Overreactive policing is the same thing that happened in Waco when BATF pushed to attack as opposed to just pulling Koresh in when he was in town.

Again, this is why I think the concept of the “peace officer” is the best policing model. It usually avoids escalations and mistakes and with it the bad PR that all good cops then get painted with. But the edicts from on high are pushing the ‘new’ militarized model on all the departments - ultimately this is not a good idea. And it certainly isn’t American.