[molson]

I've trained police officers (edit: not on tactics, on legal stuff), have been to a few academy graduation ceremonies, and have worked with many officers in all kinds of contexts. The bulk of them are really inspiring. It's not an easy job and there's a lot of turnover, a lot who can't make it through the first few years. They all make mistakes at some point, and I've seen many agonize over those and too harshly question themselves. Of course it's also a job where royally fucking up can have huge stakes. Which they all are well aware of. Training is critical but you can't guarantee perfect performance in all situations or even perfect vetting.

Everything being equal, taking a random police officer and a random citizen, I would trust the officer more for all the reasons mentioned. But where there's an situation involving an officer action that looks fishy or questionable, that officer is no longer "random", so the equation can change in a hurry.