I love Quora. There are some humdingers of answers.

Yes.. North American police seem to view everyone as a threat until proven otherwise

I was stopped a policeman somewhere heading on a bike trip from West to East for "executing an unsafe manoeuvre" I stopped the bike and started walking back to the police car and suddenly there was a loud loudspeaker voice "stand by your vehicle" I immediately did as I was told. He looked at the registration and said what sounded like " is this a Renault". I felt like being cheeky and saying don't be daft Renault don't make bikes it's a Suzuki but thought better off it and said "no I bought it and am selling it back East".
He studied my licence and we exchanged a few words then he said " I am not going to book you" He shook my hand and wished me well and I went on my way. My opinion of the US police rose dramatically after that.

I was born in a South American country, but watched lots of American made movies, no way was I going to be so incredibly naive to act as if I was in my country when I arrived to the US in 1991. By the way, I have traveled all over the world, driven all over the world, and not once have I been ever stopped by police, except in only one country, Saudi Arabia, but was stopped while walking in a shopping mall by their religious police, they assumed I was Saudi and had committed the crime of not praying when the Imam calls for prayer, but quickly let me go when they saw my US passport with a business visa from the Saudi Government. Someone told me to wear it hanging on my neck in a plastic holder precisely as a precaution to avoid wasting time during my business visits.

The outcome would show that these perpetrators were of Caucasian appearance. If not, the result could have been tragic. Cops telling a Chinese student to "freeze" shot him as he did not know what "freeze" meant & continued to walk towards the police.

You are very lucky to be alive.

You’re lucky to be alive with all the scaredy-cat trigger happy cops in the USA!!

I am afraid of our police. Was this planned?

Not only the Brits get surprised and not in a nice way either when confronted with the US law and order or disorder I should say.

Yeah, for the most part, we have a shitty police system. When, in the Navy, my immediate supervisor on the ship had been a Pennsylvania state trooper. He talked about visiting England and being very impressed with the no guns. He returned to the Navy after witnessing some crooked happenings and knowing, in the 60s, he could do nothing about it. BTW, (I found out from others) he was one of the military intel people who reported that we were bombing Vietnamese hospitals. He sent his reports up the chain of command and never went public, but along the way someone else sent his reports to a congressman. This guy couldn't be "punished" except, at the time, becoming a chief had the requirement of also being voted in - he wasn't, so he accepted a promotion to Ensign.

Why a sad face @Beowulfsfriend? Different countries, different cultures, that's all.