What you do is your decision and nobody else can make that decision for you. But from reading this thread the impression I get is that those who are serving police officers are choosing to continue to defend the police rather than admit that there is something dreadfully wrong with the whole organisation - a fact that surely must be obvious to you and every currently serving officer? It's not a personal 'dig' at you or anyone else on here - it's simply stating the facts; it hasn't been plucked from the air, so why not admit it?
There's been things amiss for years, it's not new - and not helped in the Met's case by a succession of pretty dreadful top brass (good evening, Cressida), but you cannot deny that what has happened over the past few years - and is continuing - is appalling and hardly surprising that the public's respect for the police is largely at rock bottom. It's no longer the occasional bad apple in the barrel - it goes much deeper than that. You see, this is the problem: the police won't admit anything and you are simply perpetuating it and becoming part of the problem by doing the same. One police officer on here mentioned about facing people with knives and guns - yes, absolutely true it takes bravery to do that, but do you also consider that as a police officer you might one day be in the situation of needing help from the general public? Therefore the public need to have respect for what you represent. Otherwise they might turn the proverbial blind eye, too.
It's the old saying - 'it's the police who police the police' - and it's also pretty obvious that this needs to stop. There have been cover-ups and people looking in the other direction, not seeing what they don't want to see. And if if you don't think the police are still a protected species how in hell's name can you justify giving a police officer a final warning for sharing (sick joke?) information on social media (officer in the Grace, Barnaby & Ian murder case). The bloke's still in the job, for gawd's sake (not a bad pension and lump sum at the end, either?), when he should be charged with misconduct in public office, surely? So please stop being defensive and asking other people to make your decisions. That doesn't address the problem - it side-steps it, as do silly threats from another poster of 'if they went on strike you'd not have anyone to call on'. Basically, we haven't really got that now, have we?