The only problem with your "thesis" is that this trend has been going on for a long time. Under Clinton, and Bush, Reagan, and...well back to when Daryl Gates came up with the idea of SWAT units and the police started to become more militarized.

Go to any police BB and they will talk about "civilians" as if they are a group apart. An unfortunate and dangerous mindset that seems to be fostered amongst just about every police department. When the cops start to see it as an "Us vs. Them" and we start to see it as an "Us. vs. Them" then it is a very bad sign.

Anjin-san, George Bush doesn't train these officers, the local city council is the responsible party. I've said it before, our civil rights are in greater peril from our local government than the federal government.

This is not about terrorism either. It's about power and control by people who are not trained properly to use it. Let's not make a federal case out of this.

In both cases common sense and respect for citizens is missing. Both go to the modern training methods and goals.

It seems that police used to be trained to defuse situations with psychology and avoid confrontation whenever possible. Now, casual brutality is almost taken for granted (at least in some jurisdictions), with tasers and pepper spray becoming first-line answers to any issue officers are confronted with. I know those tools are supposed to reduce the risks to those officers, but guess what - taking risks in the service & protection of regular citizens is what they swore to do when they picked up those badges. Just like people in the military swear to uphold & defend the Constitution, there are some risks they just have to accept. And when they take shortcuts, or abuse their power, it tends to get me riled up.

I don't mean to sound too harsh - I'm sure there are plenty (even in my own community) of police who are competent, hard-working, and dedicated to the principles of the force. But they're not the ones who get news articles written about them, now are they?

the government which is supposedly “of the people, by the people, and for the people”

Times have changed. This is George Bush's America, where we have government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.

I think photographers are the most dangerous... they can get information about the police to the people. We can't have that, or Youtube would get filled up with taser videos and hundreds of documented cases of unjustifiable police brutality and abused power.

Oops, too late.

Cops are trained to control situations even if that means trampling the rights of law abiding citizens. It should have been a lot more than $8,000 awarded. The officers involved should pay a price as well.

My own view is that law enforcement officers should just enforce the law. They don't make the law, interpret the law, or preserve order. That's the job of the legislatures and courts.