> why aren't police officers speaking out more against each other?
Well, as a programmer, I know from experience that there's a lot about programming computers that isn't obvious unless you actually spend time doing it - and that when you have a group of people (i.e. project managers) who seem bound and determined to portray programmers as lazy, time-wasting, obstinate, overpaid, wastes of space who should be offshored anyway, it's very easy for them to play armchair quarterback and insist that every programming problem was trivial in hindsight and confirm their hypothesis.
Now, apply that to police work. Police are routinely put into situations where their lives and the lives of other police officers are in danger, and they have to make split-second decisions or an innocent person can end up dying. I don't know anything about police work, but I'm willing to gamble that getting that right is even harder than getting programming right, and if somebody's bound and determined to make you look bad, they can do so more easily than project managers routinely do to programmers. If even 90% of the police have good intentions (and I believe that number is much, much higher), it stands to reason that they'd usually be willing to give other officers the benefit of the doubt: this or that may look bad if you put effort into making it look bad, but at least give the officer a chance to defend himself rather than jump to conclusions.
Well, as a programmer, I know from experience that there's a lot about programming computers that isn't obvious unless you actually spend time doing it - and that when you have a group of people (i.e. project managers) who seem bound and determined to portray programmers as lazy, time-wasting, obstinate, overpaid, wastes of space who should be offshored anyway, it's very easy for them to play armchair quarterback and insist that every programming problem was trivial in hindsight and confirm their hypothesis.
Now, apply that to police work. Police are routinely put into situations where their lives and the lives of other police officers are in danger, and they have to make split-second decisions or an innocent person can end up dying. I don't know anything about police work, but I'm willing to gamble that getting that right is even harder than getting programming right, and if somebody's bound and determined to make you look bad, they can do so more easily than project managers routinely do to programmers. If even 90% of the police have good intentions (and I believe that number is much, much higher), it stands to reason that they'd usually be willing to give other officers the benefit of the doubt: this or that may look bad if you put effort into making it look bad, but at least give the officer a chance to defend himself rather than jump to conclusions.