It is not just that the police have shot and killed two unarmed men, that the police have killed two completely innocent men and one man who may or may not have had a gun (while the jury decided he threw it away when he was confronted, there was evidence given at the inquest that no trace of Mark Duggan's fingerprints or DNA was found on the gun).
It's that, in each case, they lied about it and tried to cover it up.
Following the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, there were numerous press stories about how Mr de Menezes ran from the police, how he vaulted over the payment barriers, how he ran to the train, how he was wearing a bulky coat that could be hiding a bomb.
And yet now we know none of that was true. Not a single part of it. It was all lies, lies that the police allowed to be circulated and reported. They even went so far as to publish the fact his visa had expired, leading to at least a few people saying "Well - if he had gone home when he was supposed to he wouldn't have been killed", as if that some how excused the fact the police killed an innocent man.
When Ian Tomlinson died, the first report into this death said it was a heart attack. No mention from the police about the fact they had hit him and pushed him to the ground. If there hadn't been a video - taken by an American and published by The Guardian - then the entire country would have gone on thinking it was a simple death by heart attack.
But even when the video was published, the CPS refused to prosecute, because they said there was now too much confusion about what had actually caused Mr Tomlinson's death. So again, it looked like - because of the lies the police originally told - there would be no one held to account for the killing.
It took a jury returning a verdict of unlawful killing to make The CPS act and actually put the officer on trial. But apparently no one wanted to convict a police officer of killing a man, so they let him off.
And in the most recent case, there were a number of conflicting stories - first suggesting that Mark Duggan had shot at police and they had responded in self defence, then admitting that wasn't true, then there were stories saying a number of the officers involved refused to talk to The IPCC, and the officer responsible for the actual shooting would only submit a report in writing.
There were also a number of questions about the other evidence given - was Mr Duggan running? Was he facing the officer? Did he have a gun when he was shot (as the officer who fired the lethal shot claimed) or was he unarmed?
Every time the police screw up and kill someone (either by accident or otherwise), the situation is surrounded in a veil of secrecy and a cascade of lies.
It seems that when an officer gets in trouble, the immediate reaction of the officers surrounding them is to cover it up - to lie to protect their friends. It is institutionalised as much as the racism is, and it is just as dangerous.
In addition, there seems to be something else that is becoming institutionalised - the fear of the public of admitting the police did something wrong.
Mark Duggan's inquiry said the killing was lawful. Ian Tomlinson's inquiry said he had been unlawfully killed, but the jury in the trial said that it wasn't the officer who struck him that had broken the law. The IPCC refused to condemn the officers involved in Jean Charles de Menezes death, instead they turned it into a matter of health and safety law.
No one wants to admit the police - the body of people that is supposed to protect us and keep us safe - can screw up to the point where they actually kill someone.
(This actually goes further - the officers involved in The Birmingham Six and The Guilford Four were never prosecuted for their crimes either, and I am sure if you look into the history of our country further, you will find countless other examples of where the police do something wrong, lie about it, are found out and get off scott free).
And so - because no one wants to admit this - no one is ever going to suggest or convict a police officer of doing wrong. Because if they do that, it would be the ultimate admission that the police can not protect them and keep them safe.
And who wants to face that?
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