Policemen likely don't think of themselves as "going after their own people." They think of themselves as going after criminals, often times profiled based on r

Policemen likely don't think of themselves as "going after their own people." They think of themselves as going after criminals, often times profiled based on race (e.g. the anecdote from the article about stopping a Mexican wearing a U of Wyoming hat). And being a police officer probably conditions you pretty quickly to assume that everyone is a bad person. When you do deal with lots of criminals every day you start to assume the worst about everyone you come in contact with. See e.g. the Zimbardo Prison Experiment for reference on the psychological effects of arbitrary authority: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment.