The Washington Post report on police handling of protestors on the UC Davis campus observed the unfortunate trend:
A half-century ago, many parents told their children to ask a cop for help in case of trouble. With police forces now defining their role as more military than civilian, viewing citizens with suspicion and often treating them with hostility, that has changed. Saying the wrong thing to a cop, asking for a warrant before a search, throwing a snowball at an unmarked cop car, legally taking a picture of an official building, questioning a Capitol police officer about why a public area has been closed can lead to threats of arrest, or worse. But on university campuses, the police are often seen as they generally once were: your friend.
That role has obviously changed in at least one California campus. To which we add: nobody has any reason to believe that militarized police forces treat your information and rights any more gently than they treat you.