That said:
Years ago I had to attend jury duty.
The judge was instructing us before jury selection.
One of the things he said was ‘A witness in this proceeding will be a city police officer. You are not to give any more merit to what he says than any other witness, just because he's an officer of the law.’
I raised my hand and was called to the judge's bench.... both attorneys came up there as well.
The judge said: “What's your problem”
I said: “I'm not a crook and I was raised to believe that the officer has a badge, gun and a uniform because he is responsible, and honorable. I can't de program that.”
The judge said: “You better go home.”
THAT was shocking to me.... we are supposed to respect the officers’ authority BUT not his credibility in the law?
Why exactly would that be shocking to you? The fact that this guy wore a uniform in no way meant that his credibility was somehow higher than anybody else’s.
I have the opposite issue that you have: I actively and reflexively distrust people with certain societal prerogatives more than I distrust most. Cops, clergy, military, doctors - I assume they know that their clothes and their perceived status will help them in a pinch and therefore feel like they can bend the truth and get away with it. This isn’t fair, probably, but I think there’s a built-in predisposition to give certain people the benefit of the doubt for essentially superficial reasons, so I scrutinize them more.
LOL. They even have a word for what cops do on the witness stand, it's called "testilying". Not only would the cops testimony be not given more weight in my mind, I'd discount it if it was in any way self-serving quite steeply.