Regardless of Ferguson, NY or Cleveland....how do we really feel about the police?

I think most of us here respect the honest and decent police officers out there....in my case, even the PA State Trooper that gave me a speeding ticket last week! But I feel the reality is most/many police officers do feel a resentment towards the citizens, and have taken an "us against them" mentality. I was at a family party recently where one guest was a police officer, at the local level, from a city in NJ. He spoke mostly about how corrupt the police force was, in not only his city, but neighboring cities as well. Police covering up the wrongdoings of other cops....shocking in some of the stories he described.

But I feel the bigger issue is our local police becoming more and more militarized in their weapons, vehicles and training. These local departments have to justify their having these military items by actually using them. Does this motivate them to come up with scenarios, justified or not, where they have to use these weapons and vehicles? Obviously if these local depts. want to keep these machine guns, and armored vehicles, they have to show where they actually use them. Is this not setting the citizens up for a very hostile police force?? This explains all the false drug raids we read about, almost, on a weekly basis. I remember during the Wako standoff, they reported this one time, and it justified bringing in the military....Janet Reno announced they believed there was a Meth lab in the basement of the church..... Only stated one time and then never mentioned again...of course because there was none. But this, legally, allowed the military to take over the standoff.

So, how do we all feel about local police becoming more militarized, when they don't have the proper training? Is this setting up a very standoff-ish attitude toward the citizens??