A group can die in custody far more often than everyone else while the system almost never charges anyone. Indigenous prisoners in Australia died in custody at least sixteen times the rate of whites. Yet the policeman in this case was the first in the country's history to be formally charged over a prisoner's death.
One officer can have a record of real good works for the people he polices and also episodes of brutality toward them. A single good deed cannot clear him, and a single violent act cannot sum him up. Judging him fairly means holding both records at once.
The visible fight between police and residents can hide the deeper causes that both sides are caught in. In this community those causes are long domination from outside, near-total unemployment, drinking and violence among the residents themselves. Blaming only the police, or only the residents, misses how the place was made.
A nation can push a suffering community out of mind until one death turns it into the center of a national debate. At that point the country often treats the place like something out of a novel. Seeing it as a literary type is easier than owning it as part of the country.
Places with little law and no outside eyes may draw officials who enjoy unchecked authority, much as godless places drew missionaries. The question is whether the same rush that lured the preacher also lures the cop.