Relevent: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-blazer-experiment...
> For many years, the Menlo Park police had worn some variation of the traditional, pseudo-military, dark blue uniform. But Cizanckas thought that look was too intimidating and aggressive, so he traded it for slacks, dress shirts with ties, and a blazer. Guns and handcuffs remained hidden under the coat. Instead of a metal badge, the blazer sported an embroidered patch that looked a little like a coat of arms....
> That’s because uniforms not only shape how people see the police, but also how police see themselves. In challenging an image so entrenched in the style and psyche of police officers, Chief Cizanckas was bucking a tradition that would prove hard to change: a uniform whose history was interwoven with the profession it represented and that went back more than a hundred years.
> An early study even suggested that altercations between citizens and police had declined because of the new uniform. The study’s findings were eventually challenged...
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1559-1816....
> Effects of such an alteration were examined in the laboratory and in the field. No positive effects of the uniform change were found.
That said I'm all for police not looking like an occupying military force armed to the teeth.