Not a heartless monster, really

Just so you know I'm not always on the side of those with the big battalions*, check out this blog on recent police excesses.
It explicates what I've been saying for awhile, that we keep making the mistake of asking our police to act like soldiers and our army to act like policemen.
Neither are very good at the behavior of the others (see Waco, Bosnia, and Rwanda for examples), and often fuck up the very thing they're good at by behaving like their counterparts:

"The lesson here for we civilians is rather troubling: If you have the misfortune of being related to or an acquaintance of someone wanted on drug charges, it's perfectly acceptable for heavily-armed paramilitary police units to tear down your door and invade your home. And if, being innocent and all, and having no reason to think the police would invade your home -- you understandably mistake those raiding officers for criminal intruders, well, you deserve what you get. It's your fault.
Even if that means a body full of bullets, and a couple of weeks in intensive care."

*God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best."

Voltaire, Notebooks, vol. 2, 1745

I'm with Voltaire on this one...