A different take on Netflix's "Making a Murderer" (no spoilers)

[Orrex]

I used to work with a guy who left that job to train to be a state trooper, and he's since graduated and is working in that role.

He was a regular guy--smart, funny, able to laugh at himself.

Bumped into him today on a FB discussion of Making a Murderer, though, where he stated that he doesn't plan to watch, because he knows that Steven Avery is guilty. Another friend asked how he knows this, and he replied "my experience and training."

If my count is correct, he's been on the force less than a year, so he doesn't have much more experience than you or I do. And what sort of training would turn an individual into an unquestioning "the police can do no wrong" machine? Did I say training? Maybe I meant programming?

It gives me chills to hear cops on the stand under oath, both in the Netflix series (and the like) and in my own experience (when serving on a jury, etc.). Something about their robotic yet bored attitude, with a clear "I'm know I'm right, and I'm only tolerating you" vibe. I'm sure that they would claim that they're simply providing plain, official testimony, but the similarity in tone from one cop to the next to the next is deeply disturbing.

And it's very much like the tone that my former coworker was using in that thread this morning, when he was showing us all that he knows better than we do.

[RandySF]

1. I saw the first episode so I don't know the facts of the murder case

But I thought it was chilling to hear his attorney warn him about remaining in that county. You know, I used to think of Wisconsin as a squeaky, clean state. But maybe I was wrong.

[Egnever]

2. it wasn't just the cops

there were failures at all levels of the justice system in that travesty. Avery may indeed be guilty that doesn't take away for a second from all the malfeasance on evidence in that series.

[Orrex]

3. That is true of course, but...

my point here was more about the stark change I've seen in someone who's gone through the indoctrination process. I distrust any belief system whose members purport a special wisdom or insight simply because they're wearing the fancy hat.

[tech3149]

4. Have you ever been a fly on the wall at a training academy? I have

It is easy when you work as a contractor because you are there doing all this work everywhere in the facility. You're not just a nameless, harmless face, you're part of the furniture. You, by their estimation, don't really hear or understand what is going on around you.
I think your comparison to programming is accurate but don't think for a minute that we aren't subject to the same sort of programming 24/7.