Optical Serenity:
Nothing better than reading a thread that is rife with people who know nothing about police work trying to reform the system. :sarcastic:
I have an idea, let's get a bunch of carpenters to go in and reform the way credit unions do their accounting, or some doctors to go in and reform the methods used by the DOT to make highways. sigh.
Carpenters might not have the expertise to restructure the accounting system of a credit union but it doesn't take such expertise to recognize one in which its managers pocket the carpenters' deposits, refuse to pay out the carpenters' withdrawals, and turn a deaf ear to the carpenters' complaints. Carpenters presumably know when they're looking at something that isn't square and is out of plumb, and they have a right to trust the financial institutions that are supposed to serve them.
Like you, I wouldn't trust a medical doctor to reform the methods used by the DOT to make highways. But I would trust a doctor--or anyone else--who pointed at a highway that led to the end of a cliff and had no warning sign against driving over it.
Carpenters should protest against credit unions that abuse their trust in an institution that should serve them and doctors should be applauded for warning about failures in highways created by the malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance of a DOT that disdained its duty to protect the public.
With all due respect, you make a serious mistake by ignoring perhaps the most important point of discussions such as this: Customers for your product are increasingly dissatisfied by its quality. It doesn't take an expert to know that there's something dreadfully wrong when SWAT teams are employed for situations in which the maximum possible legal penalty is less than the potential or actual damage caused by the SWAT teams. No great police expertise is needed to recognize that no knock smashes into the wrong residences deserve more than an "Oops!"
I also don't think that it's out of line for the citizens you are sworn to protect and to serve to complain--loudly and often--when their complaints are met with disdain. They might not know how to do your job properly. But you should.
Reread the point you made and it distills into something like "Only the police know enough to criticize the way the police perform their duties." That would make the police superior to the citizenry employing them. And it's that attitude that probably is responsible for the heat in these discussions.
When customers complain about the quality of a business' products or service, it's unwise for the business' management and employees to mock those customers or try to silence them. There's no profit in generating ill will.
