I live in LA. This is more complicated than you think. Example: I take the bus, because, screw traffic. It's nicer and easier. We are at Santa Monica and Westwood and a cop car pulls up right next to me. I'm higher up, and this light takes a long time, so I get a good long chance to view the cop car over.

I was surprised. The damn thing was rusted to all hell. There was a thermal scanner on the top, but good lord if it actually worked. Most of the BNC cables (yes, really, like in freshman lab) were frayed up. The top was totally rust, and a bit of liner was coming through. Remember, in SoCal, we get rain maybe 5 times a year. This car was OLD.

The thing about LA cops is that they are sensible and responding to incentives correctly. The LA basin is gigantic and they have to patrol all of it. Add in the low taxes for police support, and you get the main problem of a street officer: Backup is 25 minutes away. It's just you and your partner most of the time. This, above all else, explains the LAPD.

The US Army ran into a similar problem in Iraq right after the fall. We became the police, effectively. Problem was, just like in LA, the area was too big for the force size. All small houses, all just sprawl, no back-up. Things started out just the same as in LA. You are FORCED, in order to protect yourselves, to be the Biggest Badass all around. You must culture a sense in the populace that you DO NOT FUCK WITH the US Army. Brutality is necessary. This is what the LAPD is doing, and it makes sense.

Thing is, Iraq taught us a lot about COIN, COunter INsurgency. What the army ended up doing, and it was much more successful, was you deputize the local leaders. Make them hash things out among themselves. Only call the Army when you really need them. They do not become a patrol force, but a real big hammer that whomps on things. Patrols are the job of local deputies.

The LAPD, being in California, cannot do this. The legal system here in the states will not allow for local deputations of people in Compton and Koreatown. Just from a benefits and payment perspective alone you can't do this.

So, the LAPD is doing the best it can to stay alive, which is the situation the taxpayers of LA county have put them in. You want less drones and a better police force in LA? Pay them more to get more people on the streets. Give them back-up. Then they won't be so brutal, because they won't be alone. Otherwise, drones and the like are here to stay