Originally Posted by Jim_Gunn

I agree that the police have a tough job and that they are dealing with the worst aspects of humanity in the form of ignorant losers and criminals, people with an incentive to lie to get out of trouble, drunks, people high on drugs and the like.

But I can't ignore the daily videos I see and reports I read online of woeful misconduct that are practiced every day by law enforcement officers around the country. The whole police culture now in every agency is polluted with an "us against them" mentality that leads them to hyper aggressive over reaction to nearly every situation. They violate people's rights with impunity even for minor infractions, shoot and kill animals, shoot and kill people- sometimes people even sleeping in their owns beds- at the drop of a hat and there is no accountability or punishment for the criminal behavior except in the most egregious of cases.

The United Sates has become a Gulag nation with literally millions of people behind bars, many for things that shouldn't even be crimes, all for the sake of making money for the for-profit prison industrial complex. An American citizen in 2014 is far more likely to be killed by a police officer than he or she is by a terrorist.

I would be in favor of what some police agencies already do of mandating police officers wear those lightweight cameras to record their entire shift. Not only does it protect them from bullshit accusations by citizens, but more importantly it protects citizens from the police violating their rights or hurting people. Accountability is a good thing that would serve both sides.