Don't you think how a community sees and interacts with it's police force is in and of itself a motor for conflict?
Like in this study, where the poorer black neighbourhood saw black officers as being better than white officers, even if there was no practical difference between their approaches?
But the middle class mixed neighbourhoods saw them more as a united force, instead of black or white.
One thing that is clear from this study is no one wants to a have segregated police forces, but if that could be of help with interactions in poor neighbourhoods (black or white), it could be a pragmatic way to bring down police/civilian conflict with racial tensions as a fuel.