One thing you also have to keep in mind though, to compare apples to apples, is relative crime rates. The homicide rate in Wichita is about 8/100k [1]. This [2]

One thing you also have to keep in mind though, to compare apples to apples, is relative crime rates. The homicide rate in Wichita is about 8/100k [1]. This [2] is a list of nations by homicide rate. Places with a homicide rate similar to Wichita include Ethiopia, Pakistan, Iraq and Qatar. Dorothy would not be happy! And it's presumably not those sort of places you reference when talking about expecting a couple of Sheriff Andy's to come up to the door asking if everything's okay before headed back to the station to finish up their game of checkers. You'll find a pattern in incidents of 'extreme police behavior' is that it tends to be in locations with very high crime rates. There are definitely some exceptions, but again - they are exceptions. And I imagine the causal connection is here. The man who tends sheep is probably going to behave a bit differently on average than the man who tends lions. It's probably a bit disingenuous to compare countries to cities, but a big part of the problem is that a lot of us live in bubbles and even when living in areas with high crime rates, we tend to be completely insulated from it all. Police are not. I grew up poor in the inner city and police tape stretched around an area was a not infrequent sight. And I think it gives me a different perspective than most. Just living in those conditions can make you feel uncomfortable at times. And police are actively walking into the worst of it day in, day out. That's not the sort of thing you're going to take casually. [1] - http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Wichita-Kansas.html http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Wichita-Kansas.html [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...