Not criticizing you for ending your friendship; but, as a side note, this contributes to another effect- basically the only people that thuggish oppressive cops can actually relax around, and be casual friends with, are other cops. Which only contributes further to "us vs them".
If a sci-fi novel portrayed a society where the police were a separate race of creatures who lived in walled compounds and survived by robbing and intimidating the citizens around them, I'd agree that it was far-fetched... But it seems like our society is taking constant, purposeful steps towards such a world. The war on drugs, asset forfeiture laws, militarization of cops.... violent raids on a little old woman selling illegal beer, followed by attempts to have her home destroyed...
Not to mention the fact that many police officers don't live in the communities they, er, police (I can't bring myself to use the word 'serve' any more in relation to the police :-( ).
An ex-cop I know justified this on the basis that you don't want people who would probably have a grudge against you to know where you live, which would be reasonable enough if police didn't have so many other protections in place. I don't think his attitude is universal, but there is clearly a significant cohort of police officers who are fully engaged in a 'race to the bottom' and consider themselves the rightful beneficiaries of a secular antinomianism.
If a sci-fi novel portrayed a society where the police were a separate race of creatures who lived in walled compounds and survived by robbing and intimidating the citizens around them, I'd agree that it was far-fetched... But it seems like our society is taking constant, purposeful steps towards such a world. The war on drugs, asset forfeiture laws, militarization of cops.... violent raids on a little old woman selling illegal beer, followed by attempts to have her home destroyed...
Yikes.