"If it turns out that it was untrue that there was force involved, I'll have reproach for the news report and its creator."

That sounds reasonable.

Now just backtrack a half century, review all the patterns of abuse which were found out across all manner of jurisdictions. Examine the opacity of the statutes. Examine the credulity of the reporters and how little interest they have in conducting investigative journalism when it could deprive them of a seat at the next press conference.

It is silly to be lied to 99 times and still assume that the lier is telling the truth the 100th time.

Not all cases are created equal. Some games are rigged. And cops count on naivete like yours when they know that they can plant evidence and get away with it. The Rampart division? The SFPD's drug enforcement division?

Its easy when a class of defendant are demonized to get away with all manner of denials of basic justice. Who's gonna believe a drug dealer? Whose gonna believe a gang member? Whose gonna believe a terrorist? Whose gonna believe a pedophile?

In the must read book The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terror a groundbreaking investigative journalist does what no other did, and waded through the transcriptions of over 900 terrorist prosecutions since 9/11 to see if the FBI's stings intercepted any real terrorists. The conclusion he has is that of all those prosecuted, only three were potentially credible threats, and only one of them had a plan and the resources to have pulled off exactly what the Fed claimed he was up to.

All the others were rubes caught up in entrapment schemes where the resources, means, plans and target were all the creation of the FBI's informant.

When you see a category of prosecution where there is evidence, not just of accidental fraud, but of widespread systemic abuse, then denying all evidence and treating the next such claim as if it were honest is just abdicating your responsibility to think critically.

But it might help in your evaluations if you bother to familiarize yourself with the laws being applied. Battery statutes have been around forever, but you assumed facts about them which just aren't so. It seems that you also assume thing about "statutory rape" which are necessarily null and void. You cannot treat the alleged rape of a minor as if regular rape laws applied. And you certainly should not presume that the reporter present at a press conference or pulling info off of the sheriff's log is investigating police conduct. They aren't. That's a different beat.

Funny, I know of at least one large metro area where the free ad rag has won numerous Pulitzers. Part of it was for reporting severe systemic police malfeasance that was validated after being broken by the freebie weekly. How did a rag aimed at bored college students manage to scoop one of the most respected daily papers? Answer, it had no inside sources to upset, no seat at the weekly press conference to lose. It didn't care if reporting the story meant that the cops would shun it in the future and deny it access necessary for a scoop.

Dante