[G-spec]

Yea there's good and bad employees no matter what the job is, and fortunately for us public service jobs like the police it's one of those places where you literally have to follow the rules established, there really isn't any room for error if you're a police officer that's why it's so important.
But now, to think just because of this that every cop is completely "by the book" is an extremely naive point of view.
My own personal opinion on this issue, is the reason so many cops like to "bend" the rules to their favor is because they have this mentality of there is so much on the line for them (their life and lives of others possibly)
So they feel justified by this fact, to go a little further and do some things they really shouldn't be doing, frankly some things that legally they're not allowed to do.

It's a tough fcking job yea, but you still have an obligation to serve and protect.
And I will be perfectly blunt about it.... the best cops from MY experiences (and this goes back to my Communist home country where cops shoot a few rounds above your head just to get your attention) are the ones who are in the mid point of their careers.
The ones who have gotten past the "I gotta be a tough SOB every day, it's a jungle out there" rookie mentality, but haven't quite gotten to the "I'm too old for this shit, will cut corners where I can" state of mind.

The young guys are gonna be roughnecks cuz you don't really fully mature until you're nearing 30, while the old guys nearing retirement are just at a point where they wanna get through their day without having to take shit from anyone, and actually the older guys have just as short a fuse as the younger guys. Their whole thing is "I been doing this job for x amount of years, who the fck are you" while the younger guys are more on the uh "You fcking blind punk? don't you see this badge and gun"

lol, that's my homie though, yea that guy who's midway through his career, he's not new anymore so he seen enough to be legit about his daily business, but he hasn't gotten old enough where he's tired of dealing with it all.
These mid career guys are fckin awesome, they're the dudes who will joke around with you and actually try to diffuse a situation if it gets too tense instead of blowing it up worse whipping out the absolute authority card.

Funniest and most frustrating cop experience I ever had was when one of these mid career guys was actually trying to help me, but literally told me to my face he was helpless because the rest of his squad has already made up their mind about what they were gonna do. He was literally trying to do his job by the book, but he was stuck between the roughnecks and old timers, and couldn't do a gotdang thing for me. I just looked at him and thanked him for trying at least, looked him right in the eye and told him he's a good cop.