When I was young, I used to believe that you could trust police, and that they always upheld the law. I'm not so sure of that anymore. The acquittal of the four police officers involved in the Rodney King case has really made me rethink my opinions of the law enforcement community. Can the police do anything they want and get away with it? It's not just African-Americans and other minorities who are threatened either. I recently learned of a young white man in Texas who was beaten unconscious by a cop who had a grudge against him. The man's mother has been sentenced to prison for attempting to protect her son by firing into the air. And, last summer, my best friend was stopped by police and his possessions were searched, in direct violation of his Constitutional rights against search and seizure.

We are all in danger. The police can do whatever they want to ordinary citizens and go unpunished. The Rodney King case is just another illustration of how our individual rights can be violated by the police. The defense team for the policemen (charged with beating Mr. King) said in their closing statements that these men are the "thin blue line" that is there to protect the law abiding from the lawless. But I've been asking myself: who's going to protect us from the thin blue line? n