Quote Originally Posted by mraynrand View Post
Your language is nicer than Kap and friends, but you too see the 'cultural chasm' as being entirely the fault of the police. What is the 'cultural chasm?' Who caused it? Who is using it as a political weapon? It may surprise you that most people in 'culturally chasmed' communities, while distrusting the police, still depend on them for some level of safety. People who hate the police still seem to call 911 when a victim of the cultural chasm inflicts physical rearrangement on them or appropriates objects from them.
Max's post already addresses the main point where I disagree with what you write: we're not just talking about individuals (cops and civilians), we're talking about how institutions train their officers. In the end it doesn't really matter how much "fault" you or I attribute to police when we're talking about preventable deaths that result from police misinterpretation, overreaction or whatever, because it's training (or training and legal codes) that will affect how frequently those things happen. The only thing I will add to what Max wrote is that, from a moral perspective, I believe that the police, as representatives of the law, should in a very specific way be held to a higher standard of conduct than civilians. The militarization of policing over the past few decades is detrimental to that principle, as is the idea that perceived danger is sufficient justification for use of lethal force.