I've been at too many counter-protests, I guess. Fascists have been targeting Portland Oregon to fly in for fascist rallies during the past years and I've been showing up to lend support to show Proud Boys, Patriots Prayer and the various right wing fascists groups that participate, they aren't welcome in Portland. These guys look like the goons who occupied the Michigan State Capitol building. Probably many actually are. Anyway, just as with the anti-lockdown protests in Michigan, where cops are perfectly comfortable letting them shout in their faces, break into the Michigan state house WHILE LEGISLATORS WERE IN SESSION, carrying guns, clubs, wearing armor, shields. In Portland, they come to fight. They wear armor and carry weapons. We carry milkshakes, we have a band, there is a contingent of elderly in wheelchairs and clowns in the crowd. The cops form a cordon to keep us separate and face US with their backs to them. About the only limit they put on the fascists is the time the fascists tried to set up a sniper nest in the upper floor of a parking garage. The cops broke that up but let them keep their guns.
When the fascists do manage to evade police cordons (gee, I wonder how that happened?), they engage the brave antifa in the front who are skinny young men and women in fashionable black clothes. The fascists generally show prepared to fight and our antifa don't seem to be all that good at fighting. But the cops move in and crack OUR heads when the protest is declared illegal.
We are the people of Portland and surrounding areas. They, for the most part don't even live in this state. Yet the cops see US as the threat. So, that moral compass doesn't seem to be working if you think it points anywhere near the center or leftward. Not from what I've seen in Portland.
The film I've seen from last weekend, to me, showed the cops in other cities are more like ours than Andy of Mayberry. In Buffalo, NY, they even quit their roles as riot police when their "brothers" were disciplined for blowing down an old man for no good reason and putting him in the hospital. So, I think maybe we might have to agree to disagree on this one.
I do recall a dive-trip on a live-aboard dive boat that I went on. It included a contingent of Douglas County OR officers. The boat was large but fully booked, the quarters were close and there was nearly continuous interactions. They were plenty of fun to be around but, from their sense of humor, the way they talk of the people in their county and the casual attitude they had about the violence described in their stories, they aren't like you and me.