It's not usual for marginalized demographics to have antagonistic relationships with the police force, sometimes people step out of line but I don't believe in many cases the police force does much to help solidify a better relationship with their communities.
Putting cameras on cops actions seems realtively minor compared to what the Black Panrther's did when they "policed the police"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party#Oakland_patrols_of_policeThe police themselves can have a culture that sets themselves up in an antagonistic mindset.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/248654.pdfBeginning in the 1960s, and more recently fueled by post 9-11 fear, American policing has slowly drifted away from Plato’s vision of guardians
and Socrates’ view of guardian education as expressed in Plato’s Republic. This view of guardian education is humanistic. It takes shape through criminal justice education that is not only vocational but also stresses ethics, theory and the nature of virtue.2
As a profession, we have veered away from Sir Robert Peel’s ideal, “the police are the people, and the people are the
police,” toward a culture and mindset more like warriors at war with the people we are sworn to protect and serve.3
The police may look out for one another in protecting one another from justice:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silenceSome speculate that the origins of the police put it in an inherently classist divide:
https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the-police/And of another concern is that even if a police officer is caught doing something, out of economic reasoning, individuals are rehired in alterantive police stations because they don't cost more in training when hired and they aren't decertified.
http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=3538&issue_id=112014By 2014, 44 U.S. states—almost 90 percent of the states—had a process for the removal of the license or certificate of a police officer who has engaged in serious misconduct, thereby preventing the officer from serving with any law enforcement agency in that state.1 In most states, the agency in charge of issuing and revoking the licenses is known as the Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission (POST). In the absence of such a law, there is nothing to stop a department from hiring an obviously unfit police officer.
Without the right checks in place, it's very easy for cops to get away with a lot of nasty shit and when they can, it hurts the trust the general public will have. I put greater emphasis on the police force to stepping up to the plate from a position of professionalism, a higher standard for an institution that's said to be for protecting people.
I have greater respect for the standards of my local police force than what I hear from media and anecdotes for the US. People getting shot seems way too normalized over. Here's how Australia reacts after a few shootings on a national level.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s4145574.htmA dramatic spike in fatal shootings by police has sparked calls for increased police training nationwide. In Queensland alone, there've been three fatalities in as many weeks and there've also been police shootings this year in Victoria, Western Australia and New South Wales. In many cases, the casualties have been mentally ill and that's prompting families and criminologists to call for a review of police tactics and training.
Hell, here we have news reports about abuse of pepper spray rather than people being shot by police.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/advocacy-group-wants-stricter-rules-for-use-of-pepper-spray-20110911-1k493.htmlI think the increase in the US of outspoken criticism isn't so much that there's been a change in the police as much as modern social media has helped proliferate their actions, that this was always how it's been, just now it's easier to spread the story.
I don't think the cops wearing cameras does enough to address any problems likely present in the structure of the police or their standards.
http://www.citylab.com/crime/2014/08/even-when-police-do-wear-cameras-you-cant-count-on-ever-seeing-the-footage/378690/
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/For%20Ethical%20Politics.pdf#page90
-For Ethical Politics