This is not historical. Regular police are usually marginalized pretty quickly in favour of paramilitary goons, while still having to deal with the people, and then having to enforce very unpopular laws in the communities they're from. If you think being po-po in China, Russia, Iran, or Belarus is a high-status or job filled with perks, I have a bridge to sell you.
If you don't agree with that, I guess there's still the fact that the US left has vocally called for a major dismantling of the police and removal of many of their protections this summer. If you don't believe the scales were tipped long ago, that should definitely have done it.
In parts of the world where "authoritarianism" has a different meaning from where you are, apparently.
Of course, it's only ever authoritarianism when the others do it.
Interestingly, the George Floyd protests actually caused an order of magnitude more deaths by police than the months of protests in Hong Kong. That isn't the whole picture of course, but it is enlightening how only one of these events is regularly described as authorization. Always the exception.
That's because authoritarianism is:
"a form of government characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of a strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting"
Hong Kong has great police. The problem for Hong Kongers is that they're in service of an authoritarian government. The US has terrible police, but that's not because of authoritarianism.