Words. Fucking. Fail me.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That's a really good example of institutionalized misogyny. Unfortunately, both that and institutionalized racism are still really common, and in many ways are encouraged by the prevailing cultural code. There are still compassionate, balanced cops who are in their field out of an ethic of justice, but as far as I can tell they are becoming rarer as a result of good people being disillusioned or outright pushed out of law enforcement by the heavily prevailing moral corruption.

[trippinprincezz13]

Yeah, I'm about half & half on it. While there's the above-referenced misconduct, etc., I have also had cops that were very nice and/or helped me out a lot. Of course, as with many groups of people, its the loudmouths/those doing wrong that get the attention/media over those just doing their jobs.  I'm going to be leery of them, but I'm also going to be nice. And going around with a "fuck you" attitude towards every cop on principle probably won't win many friends in the department.

Case in point: Festival in CT I go to every year. Last year, tons of people complaining online about the "heavy" police presence (though said presence was restricted mainly to the concert area. Except that unless you are blatantly doing something wrong or ingesting/selling drugs RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM, they're not there bothering anyone and were generally friendly to everyone, especially considering they've got thousands of drug-addled hippies running around for the weekend. They were there to stop those from the surrounding neighborhood (not exactly the nicest place) out, preventing gang activity and busting those only with nitrous tanks and/or being obvious in their drug use/sales.

So, there's the good and the bad

Festival of (I'm guessing mostly-white) hippies getting high in a contained area? I am pretty sure the cops don't want to piss off those hippies' parents. The people in the "Not so nice" surrounding area? Less white with less wealthy parents, I would hazard.

Meh. Mostly white hippies? Yea. Ratio of White/Black/Hispanics in the City are roughly the same (though the rate of "non-Hispanic whites" is a bit lower than the rest). Poor? Yes. Bridgeport is a pretty run down city with some of the highest, if not the highest crime rate in Connecticut. Since a good deal of the attendees are well past the age that their parents should be worrying about what they do/running in to save them/are still alive, it probably has more to do not wanting to scare away the festival as a whole since it brings money into the city, along with food and clothing donations.

So yea, it is still probably more a case of a (relatively) mutually beneficial set-up rather than the cops not being corrupt assholes.

TLDR; Less a case of being nice, more a case of not driving money away. I revert back to the one nice local cop I know.