Oh, for real?
I've been stopped multiple times for reasons I won't even describe because you probably wouldn't believe me.
In the moments when I most needed the cops, the people who were hurting me managed to use the cops /against me/. This is not at all rare for women of color. Even if you're a victim, calling the cops usually just results in you being victimized a second time.
Our local SD has been under investigation by the Justice Department for minor things like officers forming actual gangs (called cliques, but they gang-like names, specific tattoos, and frequently engage in violent criminal behavior). Some of these have been outright white supremacist and/or have had tangential connections to outside white supremacist groups (a federal judge in good standing who was dealing with the case literally used the word Neo-nazi to describe one clique). This problem keeps coming up, over and over again, regardless of policy changes. There was a minor scuffle last year, for example, where members of a LASD clique and other LASD officers literally beat the shit out of each other inside a fucking police tation, with some deputing needing to be hospitalized and suing the department as a result. The sheriff swept it under the rug. I think the last story I heard about the clique issue was from a few months ago.
One of our most recent sheriffs (who had been in office for many years) lost his job when he was convicted of obstruction of justice. Numerous deputies were either fired or imprisoned for extreme misconduct under his extremely corrupt tenure. It's widely considered, even by mainstream newspapers and other reputable press outlets, that he left behind a toxic culture that has proven very hard to stamp out.
A reformer was brought in after him, who slowly started to make things better, and who tried firing the "bad apples" that people say don't define the police. The rank and file deputies widely hated him specifically for that, though. The deputies endorsed a new sheriff in a recent election, and so people voted the reformer out. The new sheriff rehired fired deputies and essentially cancelled all investigations, trying to undo all reforms and all investigations, basically spitting in the face of the community and police reformers.
I know what you're thinking. It's the same old lines. "If it's not bad apples, then it's just a bad department! You just got unlucky! They're so good where I am."
They're so good for you. I've lived other places. The biggest difference in LA is that these stories actually get covered, instead of the press not doing their due diligence.
But yeah, dude. It's so sad that I don't trust them! It's sad that I have the wrong feelings! It's not sad that they did objectively, extremely wrong things that would cause any rational person to not trust them.