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Most people would prefer the police shooting someone than being scalded, yes. I don't know how or if that fits your 'constitutional' priors.
Policing is whatever it has become. Its sanctity lies in its foundations and principles, not individual events.
Policing in the US has degenerated a lot to face third world challenges. Sometimes old ladies get shot. The police are still sacred, though, for all the old ladies that don't get shot. Or so goes the tale of why we need police in the first place.
Constitutive, not constitutional.
Exactly my point. It's not defending the foundations and principles of policing to defend each and every thing that police officers do. That's like, given an incompetent president, saying "I'm rallying round democracy."
Note I'm also not criticising US policing in general. I don't know the statistics well enough, and I suspect even they skirt over a lot of circumstances. For all I know, maybe more info. will come to light that exonerates this officer. What I can say is that, from the info provided, he acted incompetently (I see no evidence of racism, personal vendetta etc.) and unfortunately if you act incompetently when wielding a gun, you can end up going to prison. Maybe his hormones were wrong that day. Maybe he found out that morning that he was being cucked. That's tough on police officers, but it's the law, and it's that way for a reason.
You are defending the foundations and principles when you stand against politically motivated mass media attempts at smearing and weakening the institution. You do the opposite when you don't. Officers will make mistakes. You don't crucify those who make them in media.
If the institution itself is deteriorated and bad, you need to cast a light on that, but the fake news narrative of racist police and black victims is a lie, so this event is very clearly not it.
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