Not everyone is as comfortable with authoritarianism as you and when a population is subjected to it, they tend to get pissed.
What people are seeing is that police are far too unlimited in their power. A police for with authority is a police force that is respected. Treating people like garbage is not going to result in being respected.
Law and order is not authoritarianism. We have a civilized society where law makers create laws, and police officers enforce those laws. Police don't have unlimited power, in fact just the opposite of most countries. Here police are scrutinized for every little move they make. it's almost like being a lab rat with a scientist watching your every move. This OP is the perfect example of that.
Any city or town can vote out their police department anytime they want. There is no federal law that anybody has to have them. Why do you suppose nobody has yet? Because crime would be out of control without those officers. The more these places weaken their police departments, the less power they have to enforce laws or protect the public.
A civilized society doesn’t abdicate rights to police in favor of security.
Police are not scrutinized for every little mistake they make. Far from it. The media gets attention for some instances but largely the majority of the abuses are swept under the rug. Nothing, zero will happen to this officer. The second things stop getting ignored, you see police bail. A cop kneeled on a man until he suffocated and police acted like it was no big deal. The nation was stunned when he was convicted because it was so out of ordinary.
Take the instance of Daniel Shaver. Poor guy was staying in a hotel when the police were called because someone saw him with what looked like a rifle. Next thing you know an officer is screaming at him at the top of his lungs that he was going to kill him for the slightest misstep. Turns out Daniel made a slight misstep and the officer made good on his promise. The officer was fired but successfully got reinstated in his job and promptly left on disability because he has PTSD from the fact that he murdered an innocent man.
I think the police know that we need them, and I feel that a lot of times they take advantage of that fact. It’s nearly blackmail, in my opinion. If we the people get too uppity about not wanting to be subject to their rule, they can make sure we suffer for it.