One of the responses to these topics is a stock "yeah you hate the police until you need them!" Which seems intended to imply hypocrisy on the part of the person criticizing the police.
But, that tactic is disingenuous. There is no hypocrisy in someone being scared of the police but thankful if they're in trouble and the police intervene.
If you were being chased by a madman with a gun you'd be thankful for anything that saved your life. You'd thank a runaway truck that hit him. You'd thank a serial killer who tagged him from the alley. You'd thank the devil himself if he showed up and shoved a pitchfork into the lunatic's chest.
But that doesn't change who and what your saviors are in other contexts.
The problem with the police as a whole is that they can be like having a feral, chained, mad watch dog. Sure, that sucker keeps everyone else off your property. Sure, it'll rip the throat out of someone out to kill you.
But you are also a prisoner in your own home because of the very same beast.
If you look at it the wrong way, it may go for your throat next.
I'm sure that people who have lived in, or are living in, literal police states have seen the stormtroopers break up fights, gun down killers, and catch thieves. All the while watching the very same troopers oppress everyone else to make sure the civilians remember their place.
There is no hypocrisy in being scared shitless of your 'protectors'.