Yes, policing and criminal justice in America fucking sucks (especially if you have dark skin) and needs major reform no matter what. But I don't want to start seeing ghosts where none exist, and chasing after them instead of focusing on other problems.

Edit: I explained this better in a different comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26925138

This is vague and leads to confusion. We shouldn't imagine we can learn anything simply by judging the characters of individual officers. If our laws and police practices are racist, the beliefs and actions of the officers themselves won't matter. Of course, there are racist officers, just as there are racist judges, legislators, grocers, veterinarians, etc. I doubt that Newark has a high concentration of racist police officers relative to the rest of the nation, however.