I have immense respect for police officers in general. LAPD, not so much. They've proven time and time again that they're corrupt, mismanaged, and brutal. I'm sure there are plenty of good officers on that force, but there are enough bad apples that they ruin the whole basket. They obviously have a shoot first mentality, and that is absolutely unacceptable. If I as a civilian had done that I would be rotting in jail for the rest of my life.
What really gets me about this case is the whitewashing by the media. This murderer posted an ultra-liberal manifesto online that has been all but ignored. If he leaned to the right you can be sure they would be trumpeting about the right wing extremist on the loose. Since he's a leftist he's just a madman, though, and his political views are ignored. Add to that the almost nonexistent coverage of LAPD's trigger happiness and something really starts to stink.