Paramilitary policing in the USA

The remake of Robocop recently popped up in advert on YouTube and though I have little time for a completely unnecessary reworking, just like Total Recall (another great Paul Verhoeven offering) had an absolutely pointless re-imagining - as risk-averse studios raided their back catalogues for anything that might deliver pay dirt - it did make me think of the majesty of the original.
Made in 1987 and set in the 'not-too distant future' of rustbelt town Detroit - not your average metropolitan setting for a blockbuster - a lot of the orginal Robocop's prophecy about 'Motown' has come true, though the city has recently come out of the bankruptcy status it had to file a few years ago.  There was no Delta City built, however but maybe not creating a collection of ivory towers was for the best.
There were some great scenes throughout the flick, such as the drug factory raid (I remember the computer game of the movie only allowed you to exit the level having shot dead all the baddies by punching through the exit doors, an action not immediately apparent but with hindsight consistent with how Robocop entered the building in the film), Robo taking on a convenience store robber and many, many more.  The cult robot of ED-209 has a role in many of the best parts.  In the film, the domineering Omni Consumer Products (OCP) company has taken over administration of policing (as part of "taking Detroit private").  ED-209, despite having a horrific malfunction in the boardroom, is meant to replace cops on the beat, with ultimate tie-ins to the US military taking the units (such as 25 year contracts for spare parts).  In real-life, the reverse has come true as far from the police providing the seed-bed for military innovations, the US army has donated much of its old heavy equipment to the police, as was seen in the confrontations in St Louis.  The policemen themselves has thus become militarised and antithetical to good community relations.  It mirrors the owners of SUVs becoming more frightened of the world outside their Hummer once they acquire it.  Almost as invulnerable as Robocop, (in an echo of Robocop 2) a lot of these policemen don't have the integrity of Alex Murphy in their dealings with areas they now fear.