Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
I know this is meant to be an ideal for the police, but it could also be read as a descriptive claim about public favor, and it's worth noting that that claim is sometimes false: how often do people approve of police bashing the heads of $OUTGROUP?
This is true-- and it's also the case that sometimes the law supports abuse of an outgroup.
I don't know enough about Peele's era to have an opinion about how those issues played out for his police force.
Once again, here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:
Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)