Today's officers have a great deal more to contend with than was true 25 years ago. The biggest difference between now and then lies in the area of public trust. Regardless of individual scandals that occurred from time to time, regardless of negative publicity over certain incidents, the general public believed in the profession. They believed that our motives were pure and that our standards of conduct, both personal and professional, were above the norm. While this may seem unimportant, in fact it is critical to our success.
Many incidents occur in which the only witnesses are police officers.
Think about the number of arrests you make and tickets you write where you are the only witness besides the suspect. The public, in the form of judges and juries, almost always believed the officer unless faced with contradictory evidence. Sadly, this is becoming less and less the case. The recent incident in Rampart Division is perhaps the most damaging incident involving this profession in many years. The Rodney King incident pales in comparison.