For what it's worth -- and here I have to wonder how much it's worth to criticize someone's point of view based on a photograph of them -- that's a dress uniform.
Sometimes a photo tells you all you need to know about a person: e.g., http://i.imgur.com/4CIFpFe.jpg . Modern American law enforcement: a gang of wannabe tinpot dictators with weapons they have no business with, and that they probably have no idea how to use.
That's an M1911. They're designed to be carried in condition one, which means that the hammer is cocked and the manual safety is engaged, otherwise known as "cocked and locked."
I don't know why you're getting down voted, maybe people don't know the first rule of gun safety: Always treat the firearm as if it is loaded. (which on the internet is "the gun is always loaded" shorthand.)
Yeah, stereotypically speaking, it's the 90% of bad cops that give the 10% a bad name. Funny, though, the "good" 10% don't seem to have a problem with that.
Police do have official events to attend. In my state capital there is a yearly event to honor fallen officers where representatives from every police force in the state show up in their dress uniforms for a mass memorial service.
They could wear suits. That might remind them they are of the people, and their first priority is to serve the people. They might also consider attending the memorial service for Mike Brown. In suits.
They'd have to only attend if off-duty then wouldn't they? One point of police uniform is to identify a person as being a warranted police officer on duty (then there's the appearance of officialdom and the sense of inferiority it breeds in others, the camaraderie, ...). You'd probably need to change the law if you want to allow regular warranted officers to be on duty in civilian clothing, jurisdiction dependent of course.
I don't really understand why you don't want to be able to identify your police officers though - even the UPS drivers wear uniform.
Thank you for making this point. The very last thing we need is to have police disguise themselves as regular folks. It creates a number of dangerous conditions for both the police and the public.
"Who is this random person yelling and waving a gun?" Should I pull over for this random person with flashing lights in their grille?"
It's already bad enough having some traffic enforcement types in unmarked cars or in cars with "ghost" decals.
OTOH, her uniform is very "Aladeen" and while fussing about her uniform is a mostly trivial distraction, having a uniform that is a bit less "Aladeen" would probably short-circuit such criticism. If there weren't more important problems with this person, I would fully support mocking her ridiculous uniform.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dress_uniform