> You can't really blame the "Police Officer"

Yes you can. And I feel like we should. Just because you get an order to murder someone doesn't mean you then get to switch off your brain and be absolved of any guilt.

I suggest you have a listen to this video[1]. "Just following orders" is the cause of some of the biggest grief in the world, now and historically.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYR9qGVtBXQ

That's the Nuremberg defense and it doesn't really work. (Of course this isn't exactly war-crime level stuff, but there's at least _some_ culpability on the part of the officers.)

Police officers should be treated, at least, exactly the same as common citizens in cases where common citizens would be arrested for actions the police tend to get away with, such as murder. The position of law enforcement shouldn't give them license to kill - blame them, charge them, jail them if necessary.

Perhaps their willingness to enact violence on behalf of the state should put the police under greater suspicion.

Yes, you can. It has been a concept at least since the Nuremberg trials.

Of course the one giving the orders should take an even higher blame.

Breaking the bones in a SLEEPING guy's face (over a prank call from another country FFS) is the officers job????

I guess you don't believe police are there to protect and serve which they are sworn to do. Not protect and serve random callers from other nations by the way!

Concentration camp guards tried that defence at Nuremberg. It was not successful and they were executed.

By the same logic, we shouldn't prosecute street thugs and should only target gang leaders.