Misconception: Police are trained to investigate and solve crime
Reality: Police absolutely hate doing the "boring" parts of their jobs. Property crime clearance rate is an abysmal ~10% and everyone knows a handful of people who reported a theft, large or otherwise, and got nothing but a police report.
Meanwhile they had plenty of time to come to our local supermarket and harass a 6 year old that tried to pocket a candybar. They took him into the security camera room and hassled this kid for several hours, zero parents involved.
The American police do not feel required to do their damn jobs, unless it involves physical activity or a gun. The boring stuff, like submitting hundreds of stored rape kits to labs to literally catch rapists, doesn't get done, ever.
On any given day, in any police department in the nation, 15 percent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.
> Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.
This is why I find it bizarre that the behavior of bad cops is minimized by calling them "a few bad apples", when the entire aphorism is "one bad apple spoils the bunch".
Because the ones saying it ARE the bad apples. It's important to realize millions of Americans see a cop pull a gun and shoot a black guy in a traffic stop after he informs the cop he owns a firearm LIKE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO and just go on with their day.
Truth: police protect their employers.