“In the protests against unjustified police shootings in the two and a half years since Ferguson, many critics of the police have charged that the police are “out of control.” Others accuse the police of being ‘a law unto themselves.’
“It is indeed true that a lot of police conduct is lawless: unjustified shootings, uses of excessive force, and racial profiling in stops, frisks, and arrests. In these practices, officers not only violate the law but the policies of their own departments.
“It is not exactly true, however, that the police are ‘out of control.’