When you create a proper guardian police force, officers become friendly and respected community members; they become good neighbours. What then stops them from committing crimes against members of the public is the same thing that stops most family members from committing crimes against one another: a sense of belonging, investment, and care for a community. The best example of this style of policing that I can think of is the classic small town police in small town dramas or sitcoms like Corner Gas [1]. Notice how the police officers eat at the local diner which serves as a third place [2] for the community.
Of course, the disappearance of third places from American social life is another big factor in this complicated puzzle.
That's concerning, isn't it? There are federal and state statutes about bribery and gratuities, and the fact that police officers took him up on the offer day by day is worrying for many reasons. And at the end of the day it didn't even help him.
To send people out there to do that and then charging them with crimes if they go too far seems a bit hypocritical to me. It needs to be a top down change where the police use the least violence possible and have the least amount of confrontation possible.
(The whole arresting protestors thing also confuses me. Free speech is the foundation of our country. We should be celebrating people risking their lives to fight for an issue that matters in the middle of a pandemic. But instead, we "kettle" them, hit them with batons, and send them to jail. It's not good, and shows that our society has a LONG way to go. What's nice about being so far from the goal, though, is that small changes can have a big impact. The first 99% of the work is as hard as the next 1% after all.)
Compare the MPS de-escalating the protest in London today; https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1269315641217073152
Officers move in a clear way, they do not pre-emptively arm themselves, they do not get hung up on non-violent stragglers, they take their time.
There have been two days of protests in London which are explicitly anti-police, have been very passionate, have had flashes of violence, but have NOT escalated.
Aside from the racial aspect, a lot of videos I've seen from US recently have just been crap in a professional sense.
Also qualified immunity only applies to civil liability, it does nothing to protect police from criminal prosecution (which still doesn't happen, because culture).
There are several reasons that police get away with breaking laws, but I think the core of it is the holding from Castle Rock v. Gonzalez that the police are neither required to enforce the law nor protect the public. Do we really expect the police to follow up on each other's violations if there's no duty to do their jobs at all?