You see, the thing is some of us still believe the the police are staff by people, not some faceless conglomeration of drones that all follow the same horrible behavior, and that while there are some, probably many bad police officers, and many systemic problems, they still serve a purpose, and that life without any form of law enforcement would be a big step back in many, many ways. The amount the media reports on something often has no bearing on how common it is.
If I was robbed, I would call the police. If I saw someone waving a gun around in public, I would call the police. If I saw someone using a car as a weapon, I would call the police. If I see a situation where people are endangering the public and someone might get hurt, I would call the police. Not doing so when I clearly knew I should would make me feel somewhat responsible for any negative outcomes otherwise.
I'm not really interesting in continuing a discussion where the other side's position seems to be "the police are racist scumbags and they will ruin your life with the slightest contact, so don't call them on criminals." You might find that characterization unfair, but then again, you're the one over-generalizing using large media events as evidence instead statistics.
Edit: Removed reference to ad-hominem, which wasn't factually correct.
> you're the one pulling an ad-hominem on the police
While I agree with much of the rest of what you right in that comment, this is not accurate: overgeneralizing a negative stereotype of someone other than the other party in a debate isn't "pulling an ad hominem".
If I was robbed, I would call the police. If I saw someone waving a gun around in public, I would call the police. If I saw someone using a car as a weapon, I would call the police. If I see a situation where people are endangering the public and someone might get hurt, I would call the police. Not doing so when I clearly knew I should would make me feel somewhat responsible for any negative outcomes otherwise.
I'm not really interesting in continuing a discussion where the other side's position seems to be "the police are racist scumbags and they will ruin your life with the slightest contact, so don't call them on criminals." You might find that characterization unfair, but then again, you're the one over-generalizing using large media events as evidence instead statistics.
Edit: Removed reference to ad-hominem, which wasn't factually correct.