I have written quite many posts in this blog about the absolutely ridiculous mentality and behavior among American police forces. This mentality and behavior seems to be very uniform across the entire country, even though local cultures otherwise can vary very wildly from state to state and even within a state.
The United States is one of the very few countries where you can actually refuse to identify yourself to a police officer if he doesn't have an actual legal reason to demand your ID (ie. a reasonable articulable suspicion of a crime). This is a direct consequence of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution (something that most other countries lack). Most other countries are so-called "stop-and-id states" where you are legally required to identify yourself to a police officer if he demands it, no matter what the situation, no matter why he is demanding it. If you refuse, you can be issued a fine. The United States is one of the very few countries in the world that is not, and where it's actually legal to refuse if the police doesn't have a legal reason to demand your ID.
Yet, ironically, the United States is also one of the very few countries where the police will routinely, pretty much automatically, ask for the ID of people that they interact with, regardless of the situation, and in many cases in situations where they don't have the legal right to demand it. (They can legally ask for ID, but they can't demand it at the threat of legal punishment. Even then, most people who don't know their rights will be unable to make the distinction and surrender their ID anyway, for the fear of punishment.) Oftentimes police officers are extremely insistent about it, and will outright lie about the legality of the situation in order to intimidate the person to show ID, threatening arrest if he refuses (even though they can't legally do that if the person is not actually being suspected of a crime that they can articulate.). In the vast, vast majority of other countries, even though the police would have the legal authority to demand ID from anybody they want, for whatever reason they want, they usually don't do that. In Finland, for example, the police extremely rarely asks you for your ID, even when they are questioning you on the street or even in your car about some possible criminal activity. (Generally if they have reason to arrest you, they will do so and then identify you at the precinct. No need to do it there, on the streets. If you are driving a car they will ask for your license only if they actually need it, eg. to write you a citation, which obviously requires your information.)
Of course that's not, by far, the worst part of the policing culture in the United States. The worst part is, as I have written many, many blog posts, is that they are cowards and abusers. They routinely manhandle and outright assault people who are not threatening in any way (a couple of examples here and here), they routinely treat drivers who don't immediately stop when signaled to do so as if they were extremely dangerous armed-to-the-teeth criminals and either try to murder them or keep retaliating against them even after it has become very clear that they are completely harmless (several examples here.)
There are many, many more examples of corrupt, tyrannical and cowardly behavior, where the police will abuse people and then try to cover their tracks by lying in their reports and to their supervisors. (In fact, there are several bodycam videos where officers have been caught discussing how they could "CYA" by slapping some made-up charge on the innocent person they abused. That acronym, "cee, why, ey", is common among American officers, as they use it among themselves regularly as shown by several bodycam videos, and stands for "cover your ass", meaning any actions, legit or illegitimate, done to try to justify their behavior and deflect guilt and try to avoid consequences. Such as inventing a "crime" that the suspect they wrongly mistreated allegedly did, that justifies their actions.)
If I were to start listing all possible corrupt, abusive and cowardly behavior that the American police regularly engages in, this post would become the size of a small book. Given that this intro text has already been excessively long already, I'll cut to the chase and discuss the reason why American policing is like this. Why do police officers there behave like this? Why is it so universal within the entire gigantic country, in different states with vastly different local cultures?
Regardless of what your opinion is on the "right to bear arms" in the United States, which allows any citizen (with usually the exception of people who have been convicted of particular crimes) to own and carry firearms, the fact is that it's precisely this practice that has caused the American policing to be like it is.
In the United States (and regardless of what they publicly say), and unlike eg. members of the military, police forces do not consider themselves as being citizens among citizens, whose duty is to protect their fellow compatriots and equals. They don't have an "us, citizens of the United States" mentality. They have and are inculcated (either implicitly or explicitly) an "us vs. them" mentality. Where "they" are all civilians.
They don't treat a random person on the street as a fellow citizen and compatriot. They treat him as a potentially armed and dangerous enemy who might pull a gun at any moment and start shooting. They don't consider themselves as equals and compatriots, alongside all other citizens, but instead they consider themselves to be authorities who oversee the population and have authority over them.
Routinely "officer safety" is put ahead of the safety of citizens. Very commonly they are inculcated the mentality of "make sure that by the end of the day you get home safe and sound." This, or very similar sentiments, are routinely being explicitly taught in police training. While there may be some rationale behind the sentiment, it does create a very strong "us vs. them" mentality, where all citizens are considered potential threats, potential danger, potential enemies.
There's also an extremely strong sense of "camaraderie" among American cops. I watch your back, you watch mine. Every cop must be able to trust every other cop. Sure, that sounds good on paper. The problem is, it also means that cops don't rat on other cops, don't step on each other's toes, don't intervene when they see a fellow cop misbehave. There are endless examples of a police officer extremely clearly abusing his power and mistreating (and even physically assaulting and torturing) a citizen, while other cops just watch doing nothing, or even help him. Cops routinely lie to citizens about the law, and they know they are lying, and fellow cops do nothing. They don't intervene, they don't help the citizen.
There are some examples of some honest cops actually intervening when one of their fellows is misbehaving, but these examples are extraordinarily rare. The fact is, even honest cops are too scared to intervene and to do something, of stepping on toes or rebuking a misbehaving fellow officer. They are scared of the retaliation that they may face because of their "betrayal" and "untrustworthiness". They become outcasts, they can't be trusted to watch your back, they become the enemy. If they are too honest and start stepping on toes, they may face harassment, discrimination or even getting fired. Thus, they are intimidated into silence and conformity. When one of their fellow cops misbehaves, they just look the other way and don't do anything about it. "Not my problem. It's not worth losing my career over it. Even if there are consequences, it won't be me who's punished anyway. I didn't do anything."
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