As horrid as this problem is, it's also an extension of a much wider and more pervasive problem. One that is hugely corrosive to the foundational principles of rule of law and guarantees of liberty that this nation allegedly holds so dear. That problem is, for lack of a better term, street justice. In principle our criminal justice system works like so: an allegation is made, evidence is collected, a prosecutor decides to press charges, a defendant is placed in custody, a fair and speedy trial is performed, a verdict is made by a jury of peers, and if a guilty verdict was attained then the defendant simply serves out a sentence kept away from society at large with no "cruel or unusual punishments" performed. There are problems with this system but it has a lot of merits. However, today basically every aspect of this system is corrupted and destroyed beyond belief.

Relevant here is that the police, with effectively the tacit approval of the public at large, have created an alternate criminal justice pipeline. One where punishment is not merely meted out at the end of a fair trial, but rather one where every aspect of the system itself is a punishment. Even in the best case scenarios being arrested and detained is a traumatic experience. Indeed, the police have often used just this alone, with or without any charges, as a means to punish. In more common worse case scenarios the police use brutal force and the most extreme dehumanizing and degrading methods of bringing someone into custody. You will be injured, you will be humiliated, you will be reduced to inconsequentiality within the meat grinder of the criminal justice system. It's designed to wear people down, to reduce their resistance, to serve as a punishment all on its own.

And in the very most extreme examples the system extends this system of impromptu extra judicial justice dispensed by police officers to street executions. Failing to comply with police (regardless of the details) is a capital offense that can result in immediate summary execution. Running away from the police (regardless of the details) can be met with immediate summary execution. Talking back to the police can potentially result in immediate summary execution. Being a person of a body type or an ethnicity that causes a police officer to fear for their life can result in immediate summary execution. And for every example of a police officer being fired or, rarer still, brought to justice for these heinous acts there are countless more of police officers experiencing no consequences. For every objectively unjust street execution where the police kill someone "innocent" there are many more where the police unjustly execute a "bad guy" (rapist, thief, what-have-you) in a way that is much harder to prove as objectively unjust.

And that's the core of the problem. The police are out on the street and they have tremendous power in their hands these days. The power to dispense "justice" through their own volition on the spur of the moment, even including executions. So the police spend a lot of time working on how to systematically categorize people on the street into the "good guy" or "bad guy" buckets. They don't have the luxury of letting the justice system figure it out, they are the justice system. Worse, they revel in it. Once the "bad guy" bit is flipped, everything is on the table, including summary street execution. For people with power fantasies this is a gold mine. And they've been living it out for years, decades. The system today is designed to encourage, coddle, and facilitate officers who act this way. If you are rough with the "bad guys" you're a hero. If you are aggressive on the street you will make your quotas. And so on.

Today in the America of 2017 it is very difficult to argue with the fact that we live in a police state. It's a hard truth to swallow but every indication is that it's the case. The vast majority of executions (by maybe 10-20:1, statistics aren't even collected) happen extra-judicially by police, on the street. One third of all Americans killed by strangers are killed by police. One third. Legally, civilians have the right to resist unlawful police orders, even up to and including using lethal force against the police if necessary. As a practical matter however, that's a fiction, on the street civilians have no rights, you can be executed for the slightest infraction if you are unfortunate enough to come into conflict with the police in the wrong circumstances.

P.S. Consider how much the popular culture has bought into this conception of the police. Look at the lionization of the "rogue cop" working outside the rules but doing what's right to take down the bad guys (Dirty Harry, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard). Look at the acceptance of allowing the law or norms of human decency to be bent or broken. From Jack Bauer to Batman our "heroes" are willing and able to use torture to extract information from the "villains", and we applaud them for it. All of this is just tacitly accepted by society without even the blink of an eye, we don't think "oh, but Jack Bauer isn't REALLY a good guy if he uses torture", we barely even care. And all of this absolutely does filter in to how the police are allowed to operate within society.