Why Can You Never Find a Cop When You Need One?

It seems every time a cop gets charged with beating up or killing a civilian, it's always after some bystander's video surfaces.   Why is that?   Is it just coincidence or does it speak of something much darker, more sinister?

What troubles me is that in an awful lot of these situations there were eye-witnesses - other cops.   Now you would think that a cop being a cop, a trained observer with at least a rudimentary grasp of criminal law, wouldn't have any difficulty recognizing a crime committed right in front of him by another cop.

Instead of relieving the culprit of his sidearm and delivering him to the lockup, they seem to look the other way, often denying everything - until some inconvenient video materializes.

These videos tend to show us who did what to whom but they also tell us who did not.   Surely a cop who sits by and later covers up for a criminal is himself an accessory to the crime.   And if he just remains mute, dummies up, isn't that dereliction of duty?

Sad experience shows us we can't rely on cops to arrest criminals when the criminal is one of their own.  Isn't it time we put an end to that?  Until we do the only thing a cop has to fear is getting caught on video.