I am so sorry about your wife's relative. As someone who has suffered police brutality personally, I know it sucks. I wasn't shot but I was beaten and I had previous issues with police in my teens when they came to my school and drug tested me and threw me in the back of a squad car to do a whole 'scared straight' routine.

It's a humiliating experience. Cops make it a point to humiliate you when they are enacting violence against you. Even worse if it's in front of your family, as it was when it happened to me, cause you feel so powerless in front of them. Even worse is all the bootlickers who will say stuff to justify it like "just do what you're told and you won't get beat or shot!".