Effective policing, potential brutality, and police response through the Rodney King prism

    There were differences in the state and federal cases involving the police officers charged in the Rodney King incident. The primary difference in the two trials is that the state cases were based upon charges of criminal acts violating the state's legal code. The federal cases were based upon charges of violating civil rights; United States v. Stacey C. Koon, 833 F. Supp. 769 The second difference is that this was a case of double jeopardy. “The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment commands that no person shall "be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb. “(Amar & Marcus, 1995, p. 1).

Individuals police officers can be held responsible for acts of police brutality. Officer must use “objective reasonableness” in their use of force. This standard was set for the use of deadly force, but almost any use of force has a possibility for lethal results. “Civil liability for use of deadly force is based on an objective reasonableness standard.”(“Civil liability for use of deadly force – Part One- General principles and objective reasonableness,” 2007, p. 107)

    There have been broad changes that have taken place in law enforcement since 1991. Community policing and evidence based policing have been attempts at understanding what makes police work more effective. The results of community policing are partly intended to create better relations within the community, and thus to lessen the potential for use of force incidents ( and thus potential brutality incidents as well). The negative changes to the law enforcement community have been driven primarily thorough a news narrative which portrays policemen in a negative light, particularly in editing footage or failing to provide complete coverage of the events being reported upon, as we will discuss shortly in relation to the King case.

    If the law enforcement community seeks to make the criminal justice system more effective, there are two priories for action; first, to confront dishonest news reporting, and secondly, to confront politicians that seek to use such false media narratives to obstruct justice. Chief Gates of the LAPD threw his officers to the wolves despite having access to the full video, which shows King attempt to assault one officer (Youtube, 2015). Gates should have shown that portion of the tape, which the media edited out, at every press conference discussing the event. When Gates refused to defend justice, the line officers of LAPD needed to confront him in turn. As an example of confronting politicians, we can look to the Baltimore riots of 2015, in which the Mayor gave “space to destroy” to the rioters. She should have been arrested immediately upon obstruction of justice, incitement to riot, and malfeasance charges. Policemen can not do their jobs while being lied about in the media or sabotaged by their political “leaders”.

    The issues of race and accusations of brutality in the King case are reflected in today's policing atmosphere. Not many people considered race an issue in the King subdual, at first, including. Even King's own attorney (Linder, 2001, para 13). However, Jacobs describes the media “construction of the event as a crisis” (1996, p. 1247). Sergeant Koon felt like the media had edited the tape as an act of “political bias”(Cannon, 1999, p. 23). Even so, the actions of journalists and politicians do not represent the community at large. South Central wanted police protection; polls showed that the majority of the black and Hispanic residents were supportive of police (Cannon, 1999, p. 17)

References

Amar, A. R., & Marcus, J. L. (1995). Double Jeopardy Law After Rodney King. Columbia Law Review, 1–59. Retrieved June 9, 2105 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1123126

Cannon, L. (1999). Official negligence: How Rodney King and the riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD. Westview Press.

Civil liability for use of deadly force – Part one - General principles and objective reasonableness. (2007). Americans for Effective Law Enforcement (AELE) Monthly Law Journal.

Jacobs, R. N. (1996). Civil society and crisis: Culture, discourse, and the Rodney King beating. American Journal of Sociology, 101(5), 1238–1272. Retrieved June 5, 2015 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2782354

Linder, D. (2001). The trials of Los Angeles police officers' in connection with the beating of Rodney King. Retrieved June 9, 2015 from

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/l

apdaccount.html

Youtube. (2015). Rodney King beating video full length footage screener. Retrieved June 9, 2015 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb1WywIpUtY#t=17

Police brutality, body cameras, overcriminalization in concert

[ note- this was a multi-student question - my questions and answers are included - the references the other students used are included, but not their responses to the questions or answers]

 Does the “we/they” police worldview contribute to the use of police brutality? How?

The “we/they”, or “us versus them” worldview is perhaps the greatest cause of police brutality. I am going to break from the academic material here, because I judge that research does not accurately capture this culture conflict between police and the rest of society. I base this judgment on four “sources”; police fiction ( in particular, Joseph Wambaugh), an anthology of personal stories of policemen called “Cops: their lives in their own words”, personal interaction with police, and finally, academia. I list these in the order of how important they have been in forming my opinion of “the police attitude”.

Joseph Wambaugh was a LA cop that went on to write quite a few fictional novels and a couple of non-fiction books focusing on policemen's lives. Rutten comments on Wambaugh's “unequaled ability to capture the nuances of the LAPD's isolated and essentially Hobbesian tribal culture” (2008, para. 3). I contend that Wambaugh captures the attitude of police across the nation as well (and I'll return to Hobbes momentarily). The “us versus them” worldview develops in his (and other fiction) in three sub-themes; police have to trust each other because civilians can't understand them, the use of black humor (in the sense of cynical and sarcastic, not necessarily, but SOMETIMES racial) to shield themselves from the personal costs of their work, and that police have to show “the street” who is boss.

When I read “Cops: their lives in their own words”, I was surprised at how often these stories told by actual police reflected the fiction I had read. One story I read that stood out even 20 years later was about the perception of a racist cop by his fellow officers; they considered him to be a buffoon, but that he was still a cop. They tried to keep him out of the way, but also protected him.

I have a wide range of personal experience with police, as an arrestee (twice ;>), as a victim of crime, as a security officer who worked with police frequently, and finally, socially, as I know a few cops that were in my company in the Corps, and I also had a roommate who was a cop, and I sometimes partied with the members of his department. I share, for the most part, the attitudes and philosophical veiwpoints of most policemen, and yet I was still a civilian in their viewpoint. I found it interesting that policemen may admit the existence of the “us versus them” view, but that they are reluctant to discuss it with outsiders. In the times when I was able to discuss some of the harsher aspects relating to these themes I had read about, the cops I spoke with would say something like, “we don't don't do that anymore”...but they recognized what I was asking about, showing that the concepts are still part of police culture. I used to get a good laugh with the following joke, highlighting the black humor that is part of the we/they contruct:

“How many cops does it take to push a handcuffed suspect down the stairs?”

“None, the asshole tripped and fell”

This reluctance to discuss the viewpoint with outsiders may be why academic studies can capture the existence of the viewpoint, but not to translate into personal understanding...or it could be that I just have an “I already know that” attitude towards the research I have read ;> Paoline reports that “Research on police officers has noted the negative attitudes that police hold toward citizens” (2004, p. 208), and discusses regional and personal variations on the concept. Paoline's research reflects two of the three sub-themes introduced in the fiction, excluding the dark humor. Finally, Paoline notes that while the “us versus them” attitude is a dominant attitude, it is not a uniform attitude.

How does this “us versus them” attitude contribute to police brutality? I noted Hobbes as a reference earlier in the discussion; a central theme of Hobbe's Leviathan is that the threat of force is the only thing that keeps human behavior civil. This is also reflected in Wilson's typology of the police legalistic Enforcer, who's mission is fighting crime. This is directly reflected in the sub-theme of “showing the street who is boss”. Wambaugh uses the “catch-up” game in his fiction in several of his books. The “catch-up game” consists in continuing to beat a suspect who has assaulted a policeman even after the suspect has been subdued. Although Wambaugh explains that the “catch-up” game as partly a result of adrenaline and fear ( as a parallel in war, Keegan notes that the shooting of soldiers who are trying to surrender becomes more frequent immediately after a battle), Wambaugh also notes that the “catch-up game” was condoned on the street level as it was an warning to other criminals; don't swing on cops.

References

Baker, M. (1986). Cops: their lives in their own words. New York: Pocket Books.

Balko, R. (2011). A Decade after 9/11, Police Departments Are Increasingly Militarized.  . Retrieved online from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/police-militarization-9-11-september-11_n_955508.html

Diversity in law enforcement: A literature review. (2015). Retrieved June 7, 2015, from http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/taskforce/Diversity_in_Law_Enforcement_Literature_Review.pdf

Gane-McCalla, C. (2009, March 26). 5 Ways to Fight Police Brutality. Retrieved June 6, 2015, from http://newsone.com/138441/how-to-fight-police-brutality/

McGinnis, N. (2003). The “Broken Windows” Theory and Community Supervision: Public Safety is Sometimes a Matter of Appearance. CSOSA. Retrieved inline from http://www.csosa.gov/newsmedia/newsletter_articles/brokenwindowstheory.aspx

NorthBendale.org. (n.d). Community Safety and Crime Prevention. Retrieved online from http://northbendale.org/safety_crime.html

Paoline, E. A. (2004). Shedding light on police culture: An examination of officers’ occupational attitudes. Police Quarterly, 7(2), 205–236. http://doi.org/10.1177/1098611103257074

Rutten, T. (2008, March 26). Owner of the LAPD. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 6, 2015 from http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/26/entertainment/et-rutten26

Stanford School of Public Policy. (2015). Did 9/11 Change Anything? Everything?" Panelists discuss freedoms, human rights, U.S. foreign relations. Retrieved online from http://news.sanford.duke.edu/news-type/news/2011/did-911-change-anything-everything-panelists-discuss-freedoms-human-rights-us-fo 

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I would say that overcriminalization is the contributing factor, but that militarization of the police can make the situation worse.

Balko does make the argument that militarization has increased, when in the past, "SWAT
teams and other paramilitary units were used sparingly, only in volatile, high-risk situations
such as bank robberies or hostage situations" (Balko, 2006, p.4).  Now SWAT units are employed to serve simple warrants.  I read a news report last week in which a SWAT unit served a warrant on a bad check writer.

The War on Drugs, like Prohibition before it, serves as an excuse for government officials to rationalize away Constitutional protections.  See Okrant's Last Call for a detailed discussion on how both local governments and the Feds used Prohibition to set the precedent in violating the 3rd and 4th Amendment protections of citizens.   The "crimes" involved are victimless crimes to begin with.  The sad thing is that significant portions of the population, sometimes even the majority of the nation, is quite happy to send SWAT teams against the perpetrators of these so-called "crimes".

But the problem goes deeper than simple nanny-stating.  Silvergate discusses the landslide of "crimes" that have been invented by the federal government over the last 30 years, including "crimes" that are based upon regulations rather than on the Constitutional process of law-making.  Silvergate contends that the average American commits three felonies a day...without even knowing about it.

It is understandable that police have an us vs. them mentality when dealing with mala in se criminals.  It is further understandable that police would have a degree of seperation with civilians who do not understand the mix of boredom, fear, adrenaline, and sadness that police can experience, and often rely on dishonest reporters for their perceptions of police.  But the landslide of "crimes" set down by politicians has exacerbated the position of the mentality to the point where it is the "crime" that drives the mentality, not the actual severity of the crime, and equates the common citizen with the murderer, rapist, or thief.

Balko, R. (2006). Overkill: The rise of paramilitary police raids in America. Washington, D.C.  The Cato Institute

Okrent, D. (2010). Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New York. Simon and Schuster.

Silverglate, H. (2013). Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent. Encounter Books.

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Studies have shown that both use of force incidents and false citizen complaints can be reduced through the use of body cameras(White, 2014, pp. 19-21), yet Dr. Suboch discusses potential issues with such use.

One way to mitigate privacy issues would be to allow the officer to turn the body camera on or off at discretion, allowing for personal privacy but also to allow witness with sensitives issues the option for privacy.  However, there would be a remote toggling function built in, so that when an officer responds to a dispatch the camera would be activated.  This could reduce the number of accidental and malicious incidents where the camera is not turned on.

White, M. D. (2014). Police Officer  Body-Worn Cameras  Assessing the  evidence. Washington, D.C.: OJP Diagnostic Center, U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved October 3, 2014 from http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=6525606

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there would have to be personal (not necessarily sworn officers) to review footage, and this can be time consuming.

I have done video editing before ( I worked for three years at the public access TV station, and I had to review footage before it was aired), and it takes time to go through video.  Maybe not on an hour by hour basis, but at least on a 1 to 4 time ratio.  The reviewer would also have to have the duty logs to focus on interactions with the public that may be problematic.

Finally, you would have to set policies on, like you said, how long the footage is kept, how is it to be released to the public, etc etc 

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That's very true, and there are definite problems with agencies that don't have the budgetary resources to equip their officers with cameras, much less the training you discuss.

There are also budgetary hindrances to the video storage and data collation  systems that would be necessary for efficient use of body cameras.

 

 

Rodney King and use of force

[ note- this was a multi-student question - my questions and answers are included - the references the other students used are included, but not their responses to the questions or answers]

Has the Rodney King incident increased police and law enforcement accountability? How? What other incidents over the years have contributed to police and law enforcement accountability? What other law enforcement reforms did the Rodney King incident pave the way for?

The Rodney King incident did not increase police accountability. It was the latest stop in the merry-go-round of activist complaints regarding use of force incidents. This has been a continuing process in which first the chokehold was targeted for prohibition, then the baton, and then the Taser. Simply put, every use of force method that police use has been the target of complaint. I do not have the data to either prove or disprove that use of force complaints correlate with whichever force method has been the latest method sanctioned However, this cycle can be perceived anecdotally. The King incident occurred after the chokehold had been forbidden, although “some officers have recently argued for a restoration of the tactic, saying the King case proved that police do not have adequate techniques to restrain suspects”(Rainey, 1993, para. 10) The King case led to criticism of the baton, as “use of the baton would provoke an even greater crisis in the Rodney King affair” (MacDonald, 2003, para. 10 ). A National Institute of Justice report discusses the use of the Taser; “Taser use has increased in recent years...Tasers have caused controversy...Organizations such as Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union have questioned whether Tasers can be used safely” (Alpert et al., 2011, p. 1). It is not that police accountability has increased as it is that the focus of complaint has moved. LAPD did not even begin to track “meaningful statistical analysis of the lethal, less-lethal and non-lethal force used by LAPD officers” until 2008. (Los Angeles Police Department, 2009, p. 2).

In fact, the King incident led to a DECREASE in police accountability. MacDonald quotes a sergeant in accusing that “After King, a 'culture of cowardice'... descended on the top brass” (2003, para. 13). Former LAPD officer and L.A. City Councilman Dennis Zine reinforces this assertion by stating that “under the LAPD ... administration there was an atmosphere where officers were demoralized to the point that they did not aggressively enforce the law” (“Do politically correct police tactics threaten public safety?,” 2007, para. 6).

Does the presence of a police supervisor at an incident such as the Rodney King arrest increase the civil liability of a police or law enforcement agency? How? How is civil liability today different from what it was during the Rodney King incident?

Theoretically yes, because a supervisor's presence during a use of force incident would either indicate that the use of force was within the department's procedures or was a case of deliberate indifference. If the officer's use of force was within policy, then there was no need for supervisory interference; “Good policies and procedures, following legal mandates, maximizing performance, and the use of control documentation, help protect the department in the event of a civil suit”(Wittie, 2011, p. 18). Deliberate indifference is the the standard for civil liability for supervisors; “The supervisor must know about the conduct and facilitate it, approve it, condone it, or turn a blind eye for fear of what he might see” (Civil liability for use of  deadly force – part three: Supervisory liability and negligent/accidental act, 2008, p. 102).However, this applies to individual liability, not to departmental liability, as “The U.S. Supreme Court has specifically defined the framework for suits against individuals and municipalities but has never formally addressed the requirements for §1983 supervisory liability suits”( Perkins, n.d., p. 5).

eferences

Alpert, G. P., Smith, M. R., Kaminski, R., Fridell, L., MacDonald, J., & Kubu, B. (2011). Police use of force, Tasers and other less-lethal weapons (No. NCJ 232215). National Insitute of Justice. Retrieved June 5, 2015 from http://www.ecdlaw.info/outlines/11--05%20NIJ%20Force%20Research%20Report.pdf

Civil liability for use of  deadly force – part three: Supervisory liability and negligent/accidental act. (2008). Americans for Effective Law Enforcement (AELE) Monthly Law Journal. Retrieved 5, 2015 from http://www.aele.org/law/2008LRJAN/2008-1MLJ101.pdf

Do politically correct police tactics threaten public safety? #486-487. (2007, May 7). Retrieved June 5, 2015 from http://www.fulldisclosure.net/2007/05/do-politically-correct-police-tactics-threaten-public-safety/

Dudley, W. (1991). Police brutality. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press.

Geller, W. (1996). Police violence: Understanding and controlling police abuse of force. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Johns, E. (2012). Police brutality: A lifelong learning process. Retrieved June 6, 2015, from https://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/getdoc/bf52c8f8-b78d-40fd-ad88-c3e425c47b28/Johns.aspx

MacDonald, H. (2003, Autumn). Chief Bratton takes on L.A. City Journal. Retrieved June 5, 2015 from http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_4_chief_bratton.html

National Institute of Justice. (2013). Racial profiling. Retrieved online from http://nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/legitimacy/pages/racial-profiling.aspx

Perkins, R. (n.d.). Separating municipal liability from supervisory liability in section 1983 Excessive force suits. Retrieved June 5, 2015 from http://federalism.typepad.com/crime_federalism/files/R.Perkins.Sec.1983.Paper.pdf

Rainey, J. (1993, September 29). Final suit over LAPD’s use of chokehold settled. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 5, 2015 from http://articles.latimes.com/1993-09-29/local/me-40159_1_police-officer

South University Online. (2015). MCJ6401 Critical/Controversial Issues: Law Enforcement: Case 1: The Rodney King Incident and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Retrieved June 5, 2015 from myeclassonline.com

Wittie, M. C. (2011). Police use of force. Politics, Bureaucracy & Justice, 2(2). Retrieved June 5, 2015 from http://www.wtamu.edu/webres/File/Academics/College%20of%20Education%20and%20Social%20Sciences/Department%20of%20Political%20Science%20and%20Criminal%20Justice/PBJ/2011/2n2_03Wittie.pdf

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One problem with force escalation on an incremental, or "plus one" basis is that it places both the officer and the suspect in greater danger with each level of escalation.  My personal opinion is that in the extreme case it can encourage suspects to resist, as they attempt to game the arresting officer's level of commitment to the encounter.

Going back to Rodney King, since the use of the chokehold as a control method had been banned, the option left to the officers was the baton, which as Group 3 pointed out, the officers thought they were acting in accordance with law in using.  In the trial, the judge found that only the last 6 baton strikes were illegal.

Had the officers been able to use the chokehold, would the encounter have been less brutal?  After the King incident, LAPD reconsidered the issue, "considering reviving a form of the chokehold--effectively banned nine years ago--as a safer tool than the baton in subduing combative suspects in non-life-threatening situations" (Rohrlich, 1991, para. 1).

The problem, of course, is that EVERY use of force method presents risks of injury and death.  People have died in baton beatings, they have died from chokeholds, people have died from Tasers, they have died from rubber rounds, and they have died from pepper spray.  There is no such thing as a 100% non-lethal option.  And yet, police must use force in the performance of their duty.  Ergo, there will always be deaths resulting from the "non-lethal" subdual of suspects.

This does not make it moral or legal to use excessive force, however, what a cop in extemis and an ambulance-chasing lawyer would consider "objective reasonableness" are always going to be very different things.

Rohrlich, T. (1991, September 2). L.A. Police Considering Reviving the Chokehold :  Law enforcement: Advocates say its use is safer than the baton. Opponents say it can kill, and has. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/1991-09-02/news/mn-1113_1_police-commission

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What I would have to do would be to look of number of deaths in an arrest situation and then compare that to the number of deaths in an arrest situation where the suspect resisted arrest.   There are always going to be instances in which a cop overreacts or takes out personal frustrations on a prisoner;  this is just as much a facet of human nature as is crime itself.
But how prevalent is that as a percentage of arrest related deaths?  if you look at the vast majority of publicized cases, the subject is resisting arrest during the incident.  Any use of force can result in death; use of pepper spray can cause respitory problems, using a chokehold on a resisting suspect can result in an air cutoff as opposed to a blood cut-off, etc etc.
How about pursuits?  A panicked driver fleeing arrest is speeding and looking at the emergency lights in his mirror and plows into a tree.  Is this this police's fault?

This is a personal opinion, but if someone is resisting arrest, and he gets killed, I don't really care.  I watched the video of some idiot getting shot last week during the floods;  the deputies were yelling at him to get out of floodwaters, and he tried to tackle the deputy.  I have no sorrow for him.  People put themselves and the policeman in danger, and then expect miracles from policemen who may be weaker than the subject, exhausted from the many hours of overtime police in budget crushed jurisdictions are expected to work, or surprised from a sudden attack, and then expect that policeman to make some Hollywood martial art move or the Vulcan nerve pinch and make a clean subdual.  That is not realistic.

Do we want to lower arrest related deaths?  Minimize law enforcement contacts.  End the War on Drugs.  Do away with the 175,000 regulations and petty ticketing.  Stop arresting people for not mowing their lawns ( I quit using Reddit after a 4 day argument in which people though it was just grand to put people in jail for an unmowed lawn).  Worry about mala in se crime and public safety.

Do we want less  conflict between the black community and police?  Go back to ending the Drug War, which causes of 60% of street contacts between police and black men  (unsourced, I have to look this up)

The cops have a job to do; using force is part of that job.  If criminals were cooperative in the first place, we wouldn't need police.  Hell, NORMAL citizens can be uncooperative under circumstances.  Here is a video of use of force in crowd control

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UamMIKpW_NY

Not criminals, just belligerent drunks.  However, if the idiot that got peppersprayed had asthma, he could have died.

Use of force has potentially lethal consequences.  Stupid people will instigate use of force incidents in numbers that will make future deaths a statistic certainty.

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This kind of propaganda does lead to a demoralized police force.  NYPD officers turned their back to Diblasio after he showed up at a funeral he was asked not to attend (Schabner, 2014).  Many NYPD officers feel that the officer (whose funeral that was) was murdered in an atmosphere of hate partly fueld by previous remarks of Diblasio's.
This is a nation-wide affair; "rank-and-file brethren in police departments nationwide, says police feel under siege and demoralized by the bias against them" (Bello, 2014, para. 4).  Policemen understand thst there is a "select group out there now who are making us out to be the bad guys"
(Bello, 2014, para. 11).
Bello quotes a police union leader who says that this bias is preventing police from doing their job; "
"The biggest fear now is that police may become so afraid of getting in trouble that they won't take risks when answering calls" (2014, para. 21).
This result of this hesitance is higher crime rates.  In Baltimore, where the union admits that the police are "under siege" (CNN, 2015, 2:10), the police are afraid of getting arrested for performing their duty.  As a result, "Arrests have dropped sharply" and the city has had a record amount of murders (PoliceOne. 2015, para. 3,1).  This is a pattern repeated in New York, Ferguson, and every other city in which this anti-police propaganda has been employed.

Bello, M. (n.d.). “It can be fearful”: Police feeling under siege. Retrieved June 7, 2015, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/22/police-react-shootings/20773395/

CNN. (2015, May 28). Baltimore union: 'Police are under siege'. Retrieved June 7, 2015 from
http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/05/29/exp-baltimore-police-freddie-gray-crime-marquez-dnt-erin.cnn

PoliceOne. (2015, May 31). Baltimore sees its 40th homicide in May, a record month. 
Retrieved June 7, 2015 from http://www.policeone.com/patrol-issues/articles/8559540-Baltimore-sees-its-40th-homicide-in-May-a-record-month/

Schabner, D. (2014, December 27). Hundreds turn their back on de Blasio at NYPD Officer's funeral. ABC News.  Retrieved June 7, 2015 from http://abcnews.go.com/US/nypd-officers-turn-back-de-blasio-cops-funeral/story?id=27851746 

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The incident was misrepresented completely.

At the following link, at approximately 25% down the page, there is a frame by frame breakdown of the video at the time the officer drew his gun.  Two people approached him rapidly and one mimed drawing a gun on the officer, at which point the officer drew his gun.

http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/06/09/the-facts-behind-the-mckinney-pool-fiasco-part-ii/#more-102081

from your article, para. 7 
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/17/local/la-me-sheriff-clique-20120517

"Despite the disturbing allegations, sources say there is currently no evidence that the men were involved in improper shootings or other misconduct"

I think this comes down to cultural and personal expectations of police work.  The majority of cops join up to fight crime.  That is going to reflect in those officers'  attitude to the use of force ( and this goes back to the Hobbesian part of the we/they viewpoint in the other discussion).  Taking criminals off the street is a "win" in that viewpoint.  In addition, the proper use of lethal force is about as intense and objective  test of professionalism in police work as there can be.  I can see a policeman being proud of having successfully resolved that situation, even if most cops would rather not take life.

On the other hand, I understand that there is a mentality that police should resolve enforcement situations with the least amount of force as possible, and preferably none.  The people that have this mentality would be horrified of the first mentality.

When examples of officers that subscribe to the first mentality are brought to public attention, there are going to be more people that hold the second mentality, and there will be a public outcry.