[late]

"The fact that the five officers charged with Mr. Nichols’s murder are Black complicates the anguish. It has also brought into focus what many Black people have said is frequently lost in police brutality cases involving white officers and Black victims: that problems of race and policing are a function of an entrenched police culture of aggression and dehumanization of Black people more than of interpersonal racism. It is the system and the tactics that foster racism and violence, they say, rather than the specific racial identities of officers.

“It’s not racism driving this, it’s culturism,” Robert M. Sausedo, the head of a Los Angeles nonprofit formed after the Rodney King beating in 1991, said after watching the video of Mr. Nichols’s beating Friday night.

“It’s a culture in law enforcement where it’s OK to be aggressive to those they’re supposed to serve,” Mr. Sausedo said. But he also commended Los Angeles Police officials for their progress working with the community since the King beating.

“Blackness doesn’t shield you from all of the forces that make police violence possible,” Mr. Forman said. “What are the theories of policing and styles of policing, the training that police receive? All of those dynamics that propel violence and brutality are more powerful than the race of the officer.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/28/us/police-tyre-nichols-beating-race.html

There is a lot going on here. For example, a lot of departments have teams like Scorpion, which are intended to be used against extremely violent criminals. But they too often wind up getting violent against those that aren't violent...

In any case, we always need to work towards that "more perfect Union".