The problem here seems to be the expectations placed on the police. The oath is ridiculous, there is no possible way the police can protect individuals. There is no possible way they can protect society which is nothing more than a huge number of individuals they already can't protect. Serve? Serve who or what? This situation sucks equally for the citizen who isn't getting protected and the cop who's catching flak for not protecting the citizen. The entire concept of crime prevention as a role for the police is painfully wrongheaded, to prevent crime you would have to make arrests on individuals who haven't yet committed a crime, this leads nowhere but a surveilance society and setup operations. The primary duty of police should be what it always was, to yes respond to calls for help and defend the citizens if they're around but most importantly to enforce law, investigate crimes and track down fugitives. All this crime prevention and "to serve and protect" nonsense has done is breed a flury of horrible laws written from the perspective of police as unfalible defenders of the universe which the police can never hope to live up to and which burden the citizens in such a way that it places them in jeapordy of great harm or even death. Completely nuts! No wonder police and citizens often resent eachother even though they're really interdependent parts of the same society.
I used to resent cops a lot more than I do now. I understand why, most of the laws they are compelled to enforce suck and it is just impossible for them to live up to the current expectations placed on them. A cop guilty of enforcing an unconstitutional law is just as guilty as a citizen breaking a constitutional law but the bottom line is we're all getting played for fools by politicians who are either malicious, incompetent or both.
It's a lose/lose proposition but this is why we were warned not to try and trade freedom for safety.