I’ve always thought a police presence to be predominantly a necessary evil in the event local civil order gets out of hand, so that he may apply proper force to mitigate damage.
“To serve and protect” is their motto, no? Well, “serve” carries a lot of baggage. You are right. They have been saddled with so many duties beyond keeping the peace it is a wonder anyone would sign up.
Yes, they are what I like to call hunters of humans which keep an ecosystem of sorts. I thus prefer them to have bagging limits (limited take and ammo depending on the needs of the crime area) and to target dangerous game instead of easy rabbits, but rabbit population (small vehicle infractions for example) needs to be sheared of course now and then. Giving them too much ammo and power turns them into no limit open season specie eradicators and genociders invariably. Irony that those screaming Black Live Matters are specifically calling for a big complex government of many social laws without limits which will surely destroy blacks as a specie eventually.