Your mistake is your idea of "they". They aren't all one.

I don't know that I can blame you for taking the "safe" approach and avoiding police, but don't punish them for your irrationally-negative outlook.

I don't find the parent's attitude irrational at all. If police brutality was a rare unicorn-like event, then I could understand your point of view, but it's not. Not even remotely so.

I've been lucky in that my interactions with police have ranged from professionally neutral (mostly traffic cops) to indifferent and bored (cop at a police station clearly not giving two shits that I'd just been mugged). (Of course, me being a white male helps with this "luck".) But the stuff I hear about makes me wonder: if I need the police at any point in time, what are my chances of getting a cop that's helpful vs. one that's on a power trip and wants to fuck with me?

I seriously wonder about that, and I seriously will think twice about calling 911 in an emergency. And that's the problem. It doesn't matter one bit what the percentage is: maybe 0.00001% of cops are bad, and the rest are good. But the perception is that a significant portion of cops are just power-hungry assholes who love being able to strap on a gun and show that they have authority over you. Perception matters more than reality sometimes.

I hate to be the "Norway" guy again, but here we go: The current situation in the US is a perfect example of one of the bad outcomes when running a police force: Systemic misconduct by police officers undermine the police's trust among the population. This leads to a lack of will from the citizens to cooperate with the police, also in situations where it would be in everyone's interest to cooperate with the police.

In my country, you have to go through a 3-year training program in order to become a police officer, and these principles are underscored time and time again in training. As a result, most people do in fact trust and respect the police. This makes the job of the police much easier, which in turn leads to a safer society. You never hear normal people say "don't talk to the police", which is something that seems really weird when reading about the US. Granted, I've heard it so often that it doesn't surprise me anymore - especially given stories like the ones in this thread.

>Perception matters more than reality sometimes.

Hence, the irrationality comment. Somebody who has one pleasant experience with a cop has had a good day. Somebody who has had one friend murdered by a cop probably never trusts any police again.

And I think that's rational. A pleasant experience with a cop should be the absolute norm and should be unremarkable. Having a friend who is murdered by a cop is so far in the negative tally column that I don't think there's any recovering from that.

But treating all police like scumbags because of one bad encounter isn't rational. It's a response born out of fear, and while fear can be useful it isn't always rational.

I think if a type of animal killed people on a regular basis but was fairly useful otherwise, it would be more rational to assume and plan for the animal attacking me and so minimize my encounters with it. To that end, if I'm going to paint that animal species with any wide brush, it's going to be the one that makes me more likely to survive.

Reinforcing stereotypes certainly isn't going to do you any favors if you do have to interact with police in the future.