Quote Originally Posted by jcole View Post
What we had a half century ago was the beginning of the 1960's; and entirely different world than the one you depict with Officer Sam, the neighborhood cop; it was an era of civil unrest, riots and demonstrations in the streets.
The riots of 1942, 1943 and 1967 were hardly the Detroit police's most shining moments. For critics of the largely white police force, these were traumas that offered proof that police unfairly targeted blacks over whites. You do realize that the police were stopping black people from moving into their projects in 1942, shooting unarmed protesters in 1943 Big Four-style [[while mollycoddling white rioters), and precipitated the 1967 unrest via STRESS and supercops hardcore-charging into a private after-hours party for returning Vietnam vets? You leave out the possibility that Sam the Cop policed white neighborhoods with their help, while his peers in black neighborhoods were seen as an occupying force.

I'm trying to parse what you're saying and I can't help but get this sense that you feel policing minority neighborhoods requires heavy-handed tactics to "keep officers safe." I am not alone in the feeling that this is the same tendency that helps people see police as an occupying force that's not to be trusted, which only breeds more problems.