Power corrupts, especially when abuse of it goes unpunished time after time. This seems to be a structural problem in police forces across the US (and plenty of other countries too). I say "seems" because I have no idea how bad it is really, nor do I have facts to back any of this up. I would assume and hope that this kind of behavior is the exception and that most police men and women would have de-escalated this situation in a fair but aggression-free manner.

The fact that videos like this pop up on an almost daily basis is a very strong indicator that these are not isolated incidents though. That there are more than a few people in the force with thuggish personalities, who are seemingly unable to assess whether somebody actually poses any kind of threat. Who will overreact with unnecessary violence and are spoiling for a fight. Whose colleagues are willing to lie to any extent in order to protect and cover up this kind of criminal behavior. What's worse, if it weren't for videos like these, they would (and probably have countless of times) have gotten away with it just based on their word and their occupation.

Maybe it's their personality, maybe it's their insufficient training, maybe it's the stress and danger they face in their line of work every single day that makes them act this way. But this kind of behavior should never be acceptable, and no organization should ever provide a culture that justifies or protects it. This is not a case of "everybody makes a mistake at work sometimes", this is people repeatedly abusing their power, causing serious harm to people that don't deserve it.

Look at these officers. Look at how they act. They should be protectors of citizens and keepers of the peace, but instead they act like an intruding gang of street thugs terrorizing people in their homes. This is not one of those situations where the video started recording too late when people are already shouting and you don't know exactly what happened or whether it was justified. In the different angle videos you can clearly see there was no threat, or aggressive behavior from the victim. Just a high strung cop who didn't like that people didn't respect his authority enough, and had an outburst as a result. Followed by a lot of equally high strung buddies who were more than happy to join the physical abuse of innocent subdued people.

The fact that the police "as a whole are doing a pretty good job" (which, a lot of people would argue, is debatable at best) does not not excuse any of this. Just like the fact that catholicism is such a nice religion does not excuse structural child molestation by priests. The officers that act this way are clearly not appropriately held accountable for their behavior (in my opinion they are not fit to wear the uniform), and the organization that empowers them to act like this helps them cover it up. Even though cops are doing a good job too, there seems to be a structurally bad case of groupthink going on that causes officers to feel enabled and justified to act like this. If there are so many good cops doing a good job, why don't they speak up more and tackle this problem? The "Just don't break the law" mantra is just sticking your head in the sand. If I were to beat you up with a baseball bat every time you return an overdue library book, you wouldn't think that was reasonable. Why? Because the punishment does not fit the crime.