"Natives" was just a euphemism for residents.

I don't know why you're performing such a hostile reading: it can be simultaneously true that tension for police and residents has been present for decades, and that the police have shed a degree of respect and baseline approval that they've historically held[1], regardless of whether that approval was ever actually justified.

Which is what has happened[2].

[1]: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/205619.pdf

[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/us/gallup-poll-police.htm...