re: #238 steve_davis

Police have never been friendly and neighborly, as a class. No idea where that mythology sprang up from.

Perhaps in larger cities such as LA, Chicago, and New York. But when my parents were kids, the police officers in their little one-horse town in flyover country were just regular guys doing a job. They were members of the community, they lived there and participated there and were known there. My grandmother ran the town utilities office, right next door to the police station; I knew the Barney Fifes in her town by name. That era is long since passed, though.