Prior to 1838, you had the "Watch" "Constables" and "Sheriff Deputies". Each has their specific role. The "Watch" was an urban duty, done by volunteers who had no power other then as a ordinary citizen. They checked doors to make sure they were locked and made sure the people on the streets had legitimate reasons to be on the street after dusk, but that was it.
Constables were tied in with Justice of the Peaces, Constables would arrest people once a warrant was issued, but primary job was to serve papers involved in Civil Litigation in front of the Justice of the Peace.
Sheriff Deputies, did the same role as Constables but for Common Pleas Courts.
Boston was the first US City to form a "Police force" in 1838. US police forces were modeled after the then new Police Force in London England (which in turn was model after the Police Force of France, a forced created to suppress dissent in France under the Kings of France in the 1700s).
Now, in the South, you had the "Sheriff's Patrol", Technically this existed in the North, but no one really did it in the North but was tied in with Militia Duties in both North and South. It was UNPAID AND MANDATORY DUTY for any white male. Every white male had to be a member of a "Patrol" that guarded some point (generally an intersection) and checked to make sure anyone crossing that intersection, at night, had a reason to do so. In the north, the main thrust was membership and duties in the Militia, thus during the Colonial time period the New England Militia was the best Militia in the world (and up to the standards of many regular army formations). The Sheriff Patrol was an afterthought that most people just dismissed, it existed on paper but it was rare to set up actual Sheriff's patrols.
On the contrary, in the South, the Militia did little actual drilling, for the main thrust was to find out when you were to do your Sheriff's Patrol. In the South these tended to be called "Slave Patrols" for the main thrust was to prevent any slave from escaping OR forming a Slave revolt. Thus the Militia of the South during the Revolution was considered so bad that Northern Generals had to remind each other of how bad they were compared to the New England Militia.
On the other hand, the attitude that a white man could kill a black man was part of the South's Sheriff's Patrol. It was expected to be done every so often and a system of reimbursement to the owner of the slave was part of the system (Thus the actual killer of a slave did not have to pay for the slave NOR show that he had cause to kill the slave, the killer received no punishment and the owner of the slave was paid the value of the slave).
The key to the above was NONE OF THE ABOVE LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS WERE PAID TO DO THEIR JOBS. Constables and Sheriff's deputies were paid on a fee for service basis, but that was the only pay made to these law enforcement officers. During actual riots (and slave revolts) it was the Militia that put them down, not the Constables, Members of the Watch or Sheriff's Deputies.
Just pointing out it will have to be 2038 before we have two centuries of police work in the US and thus as of today we have had less then two centuries of police, let alone police pointing guns at people.
More on the history of the Police:
http://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/history-policing-united-states-part-1
More than crime, modern police forces in the United States emerged as a response to "disorder." What constitutes social and public order depends largely on who is defining those terms, and in the cities of 19th century America they were defined by the mercantile interests, who through taxes and political influence supported the development of bureaucratic policing institutions. These economic interests had a greater interest in social control than crime control. Private and for profit policing was too disorganized and too crime-specific in form to fulfill these needs. The emerging commercial elites needed a mechanism to insure a stable and orderly work force, a stable and orderly environment for the conduct of business, and the maintenance of what they referred to as the "collective good" (Spitzer and Scull 1977). These mercantile interests also wanted to divest themselves of the cost of protecting their own enterprises, transferring those costs from the private sector to the state.
Please note a lot of City Police Forces like tracing themselves to the "Watch" but "Watch" never had the power of arrest other then as a citizen (A citizen arrest), thus you read that Philadelphia had a police force in 1751, but in reality did not have a Police Force till 1855.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police#Early_modern_policing
Now, private police forces did exist in the 1800s, the most infamous was the Pennsylvania "Coal and Iron Police". It has been called the only true terrorist group ever to exist in the US.
1915 testimony of the PA State Police and the Coal and Iron Police:
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5661
http://home.earthlink.net/~hilltj/ColverPolice.html
ACLU report of 1928 about the Coal and Iron Police:
http://debs.indstate.edu/a505s5_1928.pdf
Just a comment that the US had no "Police" till 1838 and thus the US has NOT had police "for well over two centuries" and thus the Police could NOT have "been pointing weapons at and killing our citizens for well over two centuries". Not that the police have not done so since 1838, that is true, but that is LESS THEN TWO CENTURIES.
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