I don't think hyperbole is necessary. In this case the facts are scary enough (i.e. most people don't consider the police an armed gang).
Who wants the government to have virtually omniscient awareness of their activities?
Actually a significant portion of the population DO consider the police an armed gang, and have done so for quite some time. For starters, poor people in urban areas. The difference is that now wealthier people are starting to be treated the same way poor people have been treated all along.
Growing up I was far more scared of the police than anyone else in what was not a very nice area.
This wasn't cultural conditioning either.
It was the experience of being routinely stopped, questioned, accused, intimidated and occasionally humiliated by being made to partially disrobe. It makes for a terrible feeling of powerlessness when someone else can do whatever they want to you at any time and any effort to avoid much less rebuke the situation will only make it worse.
At least one friend of mine from that time is now a police officer. His experience has only confirmed the prevalence of this ugly "at war" mentality in in law enforcement.
The police are the very definition of an armed gang. Just a legally sanctioned one.
They have a monopoly on violence - what else would you call it?
Unfortunately, after the drug war stuff started ratcheting up + 911, the proper balance has shifted.
With a knee on your back, your face pressed against the ground, barely able to breath and watching your wife going through the same thing. You then might re-evaluate the hyperbole, but you most likely won't because of the feral panic state you would be in.
Because the militarization of police, and the increasing use of SWAT, are trends that argue against this.
What if next time instead of sending regular officers they send in SWAT?
Give it another few years of militarizing the police force. Government-funded vigilantes with an uniform and a pack of laws to protect them from the consequences of their own abuse is a recipe for succes, tried and tested from China to South America.