Reply to post:

I don't want police officers to be injured or killed, the same way I think it would be grand if the rest of the population could stay safe.

BUT, as a police officer, you are there to uphold the law and protect the people and sometimes this means being in harm's way yourself. That's the reality of the job and it's the very premise upon which respect for police officers rests - or at least it is for me.

There are important reasons for having police visible in uniforms, with marked squad cars and badges and there are important reasons why police officers must identify themselves and civilians are within their rights to film them. I fully accept that this can make them a target but that's the way it is - it's what the job entails so if you don't like it then don't be a police officer. There are other jobs you can do.

I don't know how it is in the US and UK but here in Australia it seems that police safety is more important to our politicians than their conduct and the rights of the public. Which is wrong. Police safety is important, of course, and a live police officer is generally more useful than a dead one but their safety is largely secondary to the rights of the people they are paid to protect. I particularly despise the use of riot police every weekend in Sydney 'hot spots', as they are a massive over-reaction and are authorised to basically be exceptionally rude and rough.

I have two close friends who are police officers and I do occasionally worry about them. I also worry about my three friends and one relative in the armed forces. But all those people chose their careers and they signed onto those risks.

On a less generous note, not all police officers are good people. Some are, of course. Probably most. But plenty are arrogant, unprofessional, brutish, domineering, rude, power-hungry, inconsiderate, self-righteous, belligerent, unscrupulous, hypocritical, volatile, deceitful, unethical, self-serving and outright corrupt. Of course there are also those who are racist and sexist or those whose biases and personal prejudices spill over into their duty.

We also know that police forces are systemically corrupt and such corruption THRIVES where there is no transparency. We know that officers who have acted grossly improperly have been either not investigated internally at all or not properly. We know that police officers abuse their powers and their is an ingrained feeling that they can act with a degree of impunity. We have instances of outright lying, backed up by fellow officers that have only come to light when footage has been found and instances where footage has been deleted or denied to exist only to be found later and shown to contradict the police's version of events. We have seen medical reports and footage that reveal that victims had been 'drive stunned' with a taser multiple times, even when already in custody, and recordings of officers choking people with their batons and applying all manner of unnecessary force - yet these officers are nearly never fired, or even properly disciplined for these instances.

So, while I do feel for the genuinely good, level-headed, polite, trustworthy officers whose jobs may be made more difficult, until the entire police force is unimpeachably ethical and professional, we will need MORE transparency, and not less and if that means a tiny increase in risk for those officers, well that is the price that they must pay for giving us all cause to not trust them.