The point is, it has probably always been like this. The only reason that we are hearing about it more is because of cellphones and the Internet.

Google: "police brutality." I just did, and there were "About 26,200,000 results (0.22 seconds)." That's over 26 million hits in less than a quarter of a second.

Now, just to be fair, some of these hits are going to be duplicates, for whatever reason. And some of the stories are going to be found on multiple websites. However...

Other word combinations in Google searches:

suspect brutality = About 3,960,000 results (0.18 seconds)
criminal brutality = About 7,080,000 results (0.23 seconds)
crime brutality = About 8,600,000 results (0.31 seconds)
good cops = About 270,000,000 results (0.21 seconds) - because people watch TV shows that use this combo

Go ahead and try it. Google all kinds of word combinations about cops. What do you think? Are there more website hits where cops do good, or where cops do bad? And which is stronger, the good that they do or the bad that they do?
 
But, if we got rid of the police, would the people do any better at their own policing?