It seems as if almost every day, a new video involving police officers has gone viral and is dominating the cable news outlets. Invariably, according to police critics, it depicts officers abusing their authority and roughing up civilians.

The phenomenon is a direct result of technology, since these days many people have a cellphone with a video camera. This has allowed some to capture confrontations — usually only part of confrontations — between police and members of the public that sometimes tell the whole story, but, more often than not, don’t.

The unfortunate narrative that is emerging is that an epidemic of police brutality is sweeping the nation and only now is it being documented with video. Somehow, the thinking goes, police are anxious to hurt and even kill civilians and are just looking for an excuse.

This is absolute nonsense.

The truth is that every day, unfortunately, confrontations occur between members of the public and police who are hired to enforce the law in this nation of more than 300 million people and about 1 million police officers.

What happened in Ferguson, Missouri, has nothing to do with what happened in New York, Cleveland, Baltimore, or anywhere else. Any time there is a police incident with a member of the public that involves injury or death to that individual, the incident is investigated by local, state and, in some cases, federal officials to determine whether the officers involved acted appropriately.

Yet to watch the news these days, one would think that the police across the nation were involved in an organized, coordinated war on innocent people.

We are all former law enforcement officials who now serve in the Maine Legislature.

It is discouraging for us to see this ongoing assault on police officers, 99 percent of whom represent the best of our communities and share the common goal of wanting to protect the public.

It is a sad fact of life that a small number of civilians die during violent encounters with police officers. There is nothing new about this unfortunate circumstance. Officers are trained to de-escalate tense situations and do everything within their power to protect all lives. Sometimes they are given no other choice but to defend themselves and other members of the public.

Here’s something you likely haven’t heard in the non-stop coverage of so-called police brutality: This year is a little more than half over, and already 64 police officers around the country have died in the line of duty. After automobile accidents, the leading cause of death for those officers was gunfire.

They are 64 people who took an oath to protect the public. They put on the uniform one morning, not realizing they would not return home to see their families.

We have made household names of the people who died in encounters with police, most of whom had criminal records and initiated the confrontations. Yet we barely hear a peep from the media about the officers who died on the job.

Maybe we would hear more about our brave officers if people used their cellphones to record officers when they are arresting a violent criminal, putting their lives on the line to save someone in danger, responding to a domestic violence call, or simply de-escalating a tense situation like they do every day.

We are not asking people to put police officers on a pedestal and say they are right 100 percent of the time. But we would like to see more respect for the overwhelming majority who do their level best to protect the public.

Sen. Paul Davis, R-Sangerville, and Sen. David Burns, R-Whiting, are retired Maine state troopers. Sen. Scott Cyrway, R-Benton, is a retired Kennebec County sheriff’s deputy.