I think it's important to get to the bottom of violence against police officers in the US. Are there systemic problems that are creating a culture of violence against law enforcement? In my opinion there clearly is.
I do think that violence against LEOs has taken an uptick lately, but I don't think it's an all-time high (probably still the mid 70's and early 90's, the historically high crime rate times), still, I don't think anyone would argue that the relations between the police and civilians has more than a few problems.
I do think that the media has had a negative effect on these relations (although I don't believe that its the primary cause). I also think the media has helped contribute to the increase in mass shootings as well. It's important to note here that I'm not talking about singular journalists with partisan leanings who publish factual exposes.
I'm talking about the giant mass media conglomerates who exists only to make money. They would run a 24 hour news-cycle of a baby being cooked in a microwave if it would get them views on their advertisements. They push stories that get people watching and don't care why people watch (hint: usually it's because they are angry or shocked).
I think that the privatization of the media presents numerous problems on it's own, but those problems were magnified 1000x times when we allowed the big news companies to buy out all the little news companies and merge together to form the like 5 major behemoths that exist today. Such giant parent companies will invariably have conflict of interest problems when the things that are being reported on conflict with the financial interests of the news station masters.
I digress, I could write about the problems of a privatized media all day. Suffice to say, I do believe that the big media channels focus on violence and division in order to make more money, and we're all the poorer for it. It's also had a shit effect on our politics.
However, another factor which has contributed to policing violence (by policing violence I mean more danger for the cop, and more danger for the suspects) are the tougher sentencing laws that are always popularized every election cycle. The U.S. gives out ridiculous sentences that are often out-of-step with the severity of the crime,
especially for drug-related crimes.
Starting with Nixon, almost every president has run on "Tough on crime", and then attempted to tighten up the laws even more. They can only get so strict before criminals decide they might as well try to evade capture by any means necessary rather than do the time and move on with their life.
Prison itself has become an industrial complex with the goal of making money. In order for prisons to make money, they need prisoners, hence the order gets passed down from the top (probably some sleazy bum-fuck politician with his hand in the prison's money pocket) to make more arrests, and then the DA's get the memo to get longer sentences. Pretty soon you're looking at an industry that wants to expand. Sometimes the top of the police / sheriffs office are incentivized to make more arrests as well (civil forfeiture, I'm looking at you). I don't think any of the above factors are really the fault of the rank and file officers (who are the ones who tend to get shot, by the way). The police officers are neither in charge of sentencing, nor are they ones who create the arrest quotas and all that stuff. However, politically, it does seem like they tend to support the stricter sentencing stuff, and I don't know how much they reflect on the benefits versus the cons for how that effects their job.
Anyway, there is also a circle of violence going on that the police didn't necessarily create, but they are helping perpetuate. Many of the police (especially in the inner cities, which, let's face it, is more often than not where we're talking about) don't live in the area they are policing. They're just visitors there that are worried bout completing their mission and making it home, rather than focusing their attention on the fact that they are supposed to be protecting and serving the people in the hood as well. The police are scared for their life, so they start wearing body armor and carrying high-powered rifles, but it's not doing the trick. Suddenly, they're getting ambushed, and now the officers are more on edge. Their trigger fingers get itchy and mistakes are made (some honest, some not). Now the officers think they need more firepower (maybe an urban assualt vehicle, maybe a tank), and the criminals begin to think that if there's a good chance that they'll get locked away for life for a minor crime, or get shot by a paranoid cop before they even make it to jail, then why bother letting the cops take them at all. The criminals begin to resist more. More ambushes. The cops get a tank and suddenly IEDs start popping up hidden under trash in the streets. The cops become the soldiers, the hood becomes occupied territory, and criminals turn into the insurgents, and then there is no difference between being police and being a soldier.