One wonders what the difference is between the four officers involved in that death and the thousands of others who daily carry out their duties honourably.
Without knowing any more about those officers than what you have posted, I would speculate the root cause as fear and hubris born of fear. Fear of those they do not know and most of all fear of loss of control. One of my heroes, the sixteenth century theologian and reformer, John Calvin, would likely have deemed them guilty of
original sin — the desire to be in absolute control, like God. Modern psychologists would more likely talk about it in terms of "over compensation for feelings of inadequacy, lack of real self-confidence, and low ego strength."
Please do not misunderstand me, I am in no way implying all police have low ego strength. That would be an absolutely false assertion. It is my belief the vast majority of police officers are fine and dedicated individuals who genuinely believe in the
Protect and Serve rubric.
What I am saying is individuals with low ego strength are often attracted to positions which they view as having inherent authority to bolster their own sense of inadequacy. It is also a very human characteristic that we all tend to associate with persons who are most like ourselves. Individuals with low ego strength often seek the company of others of similar ego strength. In such a group it only takes one individual with the
appearance of a strong personality to influence and shape the opinions of others in the group. It takes a really strong ego and lots of self-confidence to go against the group-think. So one or a few bad actor(s) can instigate actions where others either participate or tolerate rather than opposing. Theoretically police are tested psychologically to weed out the potential bad actors, but psychology is an imprecise science. Add to that police recruiting is down and jurisdictions that 20 years ago required a bachelors or at least an associates degree are now accepting high school dropouts as officer candidates and you have the makings of a potentially lethal brew.
