The Red Coats constituted a standing army in our midst, exercising the sorts of powers we today take for granted by men we call police officers.
as usual, Hawkeye, you "don't know much about history", as the song says.
The British army was not used for ordinary civil policing in the colonies, that was the function of sheriffs and constables. In fact, British officers were extremely wary of touching on colonial civil affairs because they and their men were subject to arrest by colonial sheriffs, and to ruinous judgments by vengeful American juries.
That's why John Adams had to defend the British soldiers accused in the Boston massacre in a Massachusetts civilian court.....there was no SOFA in place for British forces in the colonies.
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