But, cops KNOW that witnesses are unreliable. If anyone knows that, it's the police. In fact, if anyone outside of law enforcement knows that, it is because law enforcement explained that to them. The law enforcement also therefore should understand and KNOW that their own 911 dispatchers are merely relaying info sent from those unreliable eyewitnesses. That's why police officers need to be sent, because they are supposed to check the scene out, determine what is happening, and act accordingly to defuse the situation, and ensure that justice is served through even handed application of the law. Otherwise, we could skip whole parts, and just send people to jail because of 911 calls.
But we can't, and we don't. Police officers are needed to ascertain what is happening, and then investigators and lawyers are necessary to provide checks and balances to the system after the fact. Which is why when police officers, either through poor training, poorly run and built systems, willful ignorance or disobedience, or unintentional errors, don't do the correct thing, the system fails.
Failure in the Justice System is not good, but people understand that it can and will happen. People are willing to work with and around those circumstances for the greater good. That isn't really a problem. But that's not what we have been seeing these last few years, and the last few months in particular.
We are seeing police officers in many places making willfully wrong statements for self serving reasons. We are seeing certain members of law enforcement using the public's willingness to work with an imperfect system for the greater good, and pervert that into something frankly thuggish. Not all officers, but enough to put into question the whole system.
I would applaud any officer who puts their own safety at risk to attempt to defuse a difficult situation. I cannot defend an officer that shoots first, because the situation may possibly be threatening.
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