Cop Complex

When a cop believes that laws don't apply to them and only the Rights that they approve of actively apply to the citizen they are encountering at the moment. They believe that qualified immunity gives them the Right to suspend a citizen's Rights during an encounter - this simply is not true and often results in horrific new headlines.

God Complex adjacent.

Citizen is LEGALLY open carrying on PUBLIC land, say a county office building parking lot, and filming in public spaces. Cop approaches citizen to question the activities because they got a call from a county employee inside. Citizen cordially refuses to answer the cop's questions, states that he is acting within the bounds of the law and Rights. Cops continue to try to escalate the situation and display very poor attitudes when they figure out this is just a citizen acting legally and there's nothing they can do to the citizen. This is how cop complex works.

As soon as they discern that the citizen is acting within the bounds of the law they should immediately bid that citizen farewell and depart cordially.

The display of attitude is often misconstrued or chalked up to racism, however, the interaction plays out the same almost every time, across the board, regardless of the citizen's racial composition. This is not a brown, white, or black issue - this is a blue issue.

Note to the reader: If you're a cop reading this, I implore you to turn every citizen interaction into an opportunity to 'protect & server' and deescalate rather than embrace this 'Us vs. Them' attitude that seems so prevalent behind the blue line.