Ex-top cop Bill Bratton: Passionate hatred of police and policing is over the line

There is no replacement for careful and professional recruitment and selection of police personnel. Police officers must be held to the highest standards. As Robert Peel has written: "The police are the public and the public are the police."

Some cops should not be cops. There has been a torrent of examples of bad cops doing bad things, which has led to the national outcry against police officers and policing in general.  Broad‐based hatred for police is now a fundamental tenet of some radicals’ philosophy. While granting that horrific individual acts of cruelty and abuse have occurred far more often than is acceptable, I think the passionate hatred of police and policing is over the line. And when the retaliation against police officers gets violent, no matter how historically understandable the righteous rage, that is not only unacceptable but illegal.