Over 35 million hits in Google on "police brutality" search.
And you're certain none of those hits are duplicates, factual, debunked, or false claims?
If, in 1976, you "googled" police brutality, and received no hits because the internet didn't exist, does that mean there was no police brutality back then?
Probably the number of hits to the same site depends on several things. One of them might be the number of times the search phrase is used in a particular website.
Police brutality has always existed. Look at what they did to Bonnie and Clyde! Cops were probably somewhat more honorable in the past, but considering what Eliot Ness and the Untouchables were up against, nobody can be sure.
Lately a lot of honor has gone away from everybody. Cops, who are out in the forefront, will probably express their lack of honor more readily than other people, simply because they carry guns, and are extremely bold anyway.
Yes, and that's why you can't cite google hits as any reliable measurement for this issue.
What would be more accurate would be actual statistical data, such as that tracked by the FBI.
The recent rise in the awareness of police misconduct is actually the internet. Although statistics will show you unequivocally that police misconduct has greatly reduced over time and is consistently lowering every decade, the public perception is that its running amok and unchecked. The reason for the incorrect perception is due to every single bad incident going "viral" in minutes. Prior to the internet, the abuses may have been 10x more prevalent, but the exposure to the public was nowhere near what it is today. An incident in CA might make the local paper, but no one in NY would ever know about it.
I will not defend a bad cop making a bad decision. There's plenty of idiots working in this field just like any other. The idiot female cop in TX that shot her neighbor, she's an idiot. But it actually wasn't police related. She was off duty, and thought her home was being burglarized. Still an idiot. But I will defend the false accusations and outright lies of abuse. Who was that dumbass they tried to martyrize? Robbed a store, fought with cop, and got shot. You start fighting a cop, you'll get shot. If you resist arrest and escalate the situation yourself, use of force rules allow the cops to escalate as well. 99.9% of our interactions with the public can be handled with words alone. If you listen, and act like a human, we can all get thru this without getting hurt. If you fight, run, act a fool, then you changed the entire encounter.
