It's sad ...
How have the police and politicians managed to mess up so much that a figurine in a police uniform produces a feeling of fear and distrust, instead of one of respect and security? Well into my twenties (let's say twenty tears ago), I was, in general supportive of the police. I'd grown up with "Dixon of Dock Green", and, coming from a public service family, knew several police officers (indeed, the next-door neighbours were police officers). The police were not something to be afraid of. OK, my confidence in them had been dented a little by their activities in the miners' strike (I lived in South Yorkshire, and knew people on both sides of the Battle of Orgreave), but accepted that they were acting under orders.* Now, despite never having been in trouble with the police, having only had to deal with them when they have attended incidents that required medical assistance (I called the ambulance, not the police), and knowing a few police, I do not trust individual police, their organisation, or the political machinery behind them. If I saw one being beaten up by someone, I would have to think very hard whether I would trouble myself to give even the slightest assistance for fear of being included in a heavy-handed "arrest everyone in the area" operation.
Really, the story of how the police lost public sympathy in less than twenty years is utterly remarkable. How and, more importantly, why did so much public sympathy get pissed down the drain? At one time this figurine would have been cute, if still creepy - now it is just full of menace. Like I said, so, so sad ...
*OK - I know more about the Nuremburg Defence now than I did then.