When did we go from having Peace Officers, to Law Enforcement?
Remember the days when people trusted police? When a cop would go to your parents when he caught a teen doing wrong and talk face to face with the parents AND the kid? When a cop would pull over someone for driving home from the bar drunk, and stop him, give him a ride home and tell him the next time he was going into the concrete holding cell?
My brother in law was a traffic cop. He actually was reprimanded because he was the only guy on the force that hadn’t written a seat belt violation ticket. He told his Sgt “I feel stupid telling a grown man to put on his seatbelt and writing a ticket”. THAT is a real Peace Officer.
Good question. I think it was when PD's started training everyone in the dept to be SWAT team members.
There's an entirely different mindset for SWAT vs street cops just like there is for SEAL's vs Infantry soldiers. To the layman they may look like they're doing the same thing but it's very different in reality and very different mindset; not to mention training level.