I was going to write a whole post about the militarization of the cops, and the increasingly free use of "non-lethal" weapons (never mind that some people have died from taser attacks and even pepper-spray).
But Digby beat me to it and wrote a much better essay than I could have.
EXTRA:
James Fallows quotes extensively from two people with sharply differing experiences and perspectives on the police. This is a follow up to another post he made about the militarization of local police.