Don't get me wrong, I respect the police and understand they have been given, especially in America's urban environments, not only an impossible task but perhaps a deliberately impossible one whose ultimate aim is to criminalize everyone except "the right people" at the top.
That said, the LAPD has an unenviable record of nasty screw-ups over the years, and not just the Rampart scandal (I live not very far from that epicenter) but a string of bad shootings and bad beat-downs in recent times. Our current police chief does not, to say the least, inspire admiration or confidence. From what I can tell he is a politician who provides Villaraigosa's blue shadow.
***
And this: Crazy makes crazy. Our society is very good at identifying obviously wacko outliers, not very good at identifying what should be obviously wacko insiders. Yes, this goes all the way to the top. We are generating the crazies and too many of us don't want, it seems, to understand how.