It's better to be silent and live to fight another day, principally in court, or citizens' review boards, or some other way. On the streets, police officers literally are kings. And you cannot win a confrontation with them on the street. It will take time to change the culture in the police departments themselves to allow them to understand that listening to the community communicating with the community will go a lot further than the use of force. As a caveat, we're not talking about a situation where an individual is engaged in criminal conduct like robbery or murder.
Police officers have a right to use reasonable force to carry out their work.
Our concerns are when minor incidents occur that escalate into officers using force. Good police work would have prevented that from happening. That is, the ability to de-escalate a confrontation with verbal skills. Participation in the community policing program where community policing is given a high mark within a department, so that an officer understands that part of development and movement within a department depends on community policing, so that they understand community policing is an important part of police work. The present system of internal affairs where the police police themselves is ineffective largely because the public has no confidence in it, plus the officers know that they will be protected by other officers.