I deal with the police every day. The vast majority of them are good people who are trying to do good things.
But it’s important for these good cops to speak out against the bad ones and not protect them, else they all get painted with the same brush. 
The same goes for lawyers, judges, preachers, Muslims, Christians, bikers, smokers, vegetarians, blacks, latinos, asians, men, women, dogs, cats, and every other group — remaining silent when members of your group do bad things only helps people to say, “They’re all alike.”
As my friend Carl Davies said, “When I was an investigative reporter I met many police officers who performed their jobs in an extremely professional manner. They knewhow to diffuse difficult and dangerous situations without having to summarily execute anyone. Many of them got though an entire year without even firing a gun. Officers who take seriously their obligation ‘to protect and serve’ are in the majority. We need to thank them for their service. And they need to speak out against the murderous minority of police thugs who are killing innocent civilians — mostly blacks — for no legitimate reason.”
In the two most recent cases, the problem was the DAs who refused to get an indictment — protecting your own only fosters distrust of the good cops.
One of the hardest things to do is to stand up to your friends and to risk the anger of your peers. We need to encourage good people to do that, and realize that by remaining silent, they are also harming their own reputations.
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