Policing--Us vs Them? or Us With Them?

OS picked up the following quote on a thread for Denninger's post this morning--no time to chase down and verify, but it seems apropo for the time. It guided, and still guides to some extent, policing in the UK--low-key, usually unarmed, keeping the peace being the priority.

It is a stern warning against the militarization of the police, the employment of the police to harvest cash from the citizenry, and the erosion of trust that has now become endemic between citizens and the police. Slowly, surely, it has become an Us vs. Them scenario, even down to the small-town level. The air is becoming thick with it, which is a bad thing for us all.
  

Sir Robert Peel's (5 February 1788 2 July 1850) Nine Principles of Policing:

1: The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
2: The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.
3: Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
4: The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
5: Police seek and preserve public favor not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
6: Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient.
7: Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
8: Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
9: The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.