llamas
From the specificity of my example, you correctly deduce that I was referring to a particular case.
The incident I referred to happened maybe a month or two ago and was reported in the local Wilmington News Journal in about three or four column inches in the middle pages. I think the actual incident happened in Washington, or maybe Baltimore, and the FBI were the ones responsible for the shooting. I'm afraid I don't have a copy of the newspaper to hand, as I don't keep them.
There are exceptions that prove the rule (your case of the speeding American banged up in MK is one), but given time, I could probably lay my hands on hundreds of similar incidents depicting what Brits would consider a very heavy-handed approach to law-enforcement in the USA.
Your assertion that Americans are more cynical to the claims of the victims of police zealotry only goes to prove my point, and exactly demostrates the different cultural approaches to law-enforcement that I was trying to illustrate.
In Britain, we would tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the civilian, and expect the police to give good reason as to why a citizen was shot or beaten or imprisoned. We apply the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" outside the courtroom as well as inside so that instead of a "shoot first, ask questions later" policy, we expect the police to use minimum force and minimum restraint at all times - and there is hell to pay if they don't.
That's just the way it is, and I have seen numerous occasions of it personally and by report. If I was to be asked for one piece of advice to give a potential immigrant to the USA from Britain (slightly tongue in cheek but with a very serious undertone), it would be that you remember that in America it is you who refer to the police as "sir" and not vice versa.
I do however agree with you that the title of this thread does not in any way describe the problems raised by this incident. There are still security issue at US airports that I think could be improved upon, but this incident is not an issue of the efficacy of the security, but rather the consequences of its implementation.