There is abundant research that shows that our perceptions of police are largely based on our own experiences with them.

For those without any personal experiences, they may be influenced by what they read, hear or see in the media, from anecdotes by those who have had positive or negative encounters and from other sources.

During this tumultuous period when we are conflicted over the protests touched off by the deaths of African American suspects at the hands of white police officers and our desire to support the concept of policing and the vast majority of officers who do their jobs effectively day in and day out, we might take a minute to reflect on how our own memories and attitudes have been shaped by our encounters.

Mine started at age 3 when I fled from my babysitter after a bath and ran naked into the Summit Hill business district on West Ludlow Street before being corralled by a congenial borough police officer.

Two years later, on the first day of kindergarten and terrified over the prospect of going to school, I escaped through a large open window in the former Lincoln Elementary School, jumped to the ground and took off, as my startled teacher, Edith Storch, screamed for me to stop.

Later, I was found by Police Chief Markey and my mother asleep, hiding behind a tombstone in a nearby cemetery. Despite my fears of great consequences, aside from a stern lecture from my mom there were no reprisals from Markey or Mrs. Storch. I assume they were relieved that I was OK.

During my driving career, I received two tickets - one when I was 17 for a stop sign violation in Bath and the other two years later for failing to come to a complete stop at a blinking red light in Stroudsburg. No issue. Guilty, officers.

When I became a journalist, I cultivated police as sources of information for news stories, but I also got to know them as individuals. This is when I was able to understand that they were not simply faceless cops behind a badge but human beings with all of the ups and downs and hopes and fears all of us have.

Unlike most of us, they had the intense additional pressure of the understanding that, even in small communities, there is an outside chance that they might not make it home at the end of a shift.

Danger lurks in the most unsuspecting locations. I think of the killing of one trooper and the wounding of another in 2014 by ambush shooter Eric Frein at the remote Blooming Grove (Pike County) state police barracks during a change of shifts.

Until the Supreme Court decision in 1966 in the Miranda case (“You have the right to remain silent …”) and the Vietnam War protests a few years later, the police and we reporters had a close relationships - perhaps a bit too close. Sometimes I would have breakfast or go for a drink with my police sources.

We would bend the rules on occasion when an officer asked us to hold a news story so the suspect would not flee from the area. It was a reasonable request that we agreed to in the name of public safety.

After the Miranda warning case, police became much more guarded with details for fear of jeopardizing their case and having it thrown out of court. Getting information was like pulling teeth. This is still going on, especially with high-profile cases, nearly 55 years later.

What really soured the relationship between the police and the media was when police officers were called “pigs” by protesting young people, the disenchanted, even on occasion by the media.

The catalyst was the August 1968 protests by a group called the “yippies” outside of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. They had a small pig as their mascot, which they proposed as their presidential candidate.

When police tried to break up the demonstration, they started calling the police “pigs,” and the expression caught on. Extensive media accounts really ticked off the police and their supporters, and much of their criticism was aimed at the news media for giving a platform and coverage to these chanting and often disruptive protesters.

This ended the close relationship other journalists and I had with our police sources.

So while each of us might assess our views of the police because of individual experiences, as a society we need to realize that this is a time when we must remove bad actors from law enforcement, but we must be careful that in the process we don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com