From your own link it shows less than 200 deaths of police per year from the last five years. Hundreds as you've used it imho is misleading. Furthermore those stats include accidents which makes them even more misleading. Do you honestly think deaths from cancer related to 9/11 should "count" in the context of this debate? And yet they closely trail and sometimes even eclipse the death of cops by gunfire in the past 5 years.
I do agree that it's a dangerous job but I don't agree that they're "required" to be heavy handed because of "gangsters" with "serious weaponry". The weaponry issue is a gun control one, not a "gangsters" one. There's absolutely NO NEED for so many ARs over there. NONE WHAT-SO-EVER. And I say this as a reformed red-stater expat who had a AK under my bed as a teenager and a 40 smith in the night stand.
From my perspective I think the narrative for cops is disproportionate and out of hand. The ample, arguably overwhelming, footage of cops beating, maiming, shooting, and killing people in the past month alone is ridiculous and should be evidence enough that the police have lost their way. Instead you're in here defending them in spite of overwhelming video evidence to the contrary.
In Australia and NZ the police are legally bound to these key principles.
• Police should only use force that is reasonable, necessary, proportionate and appropriate to the circumstances.
• Police should use no more force than is reasonably necessary for the safe and effective performance of their duties.
• Individual police are accountable and responsible for their use of force and must be able to justify their actions at law
Do you think the video below is a good example of the use of proportionate force? Do you think that shooting was justified? https://twitter.com/i/status/1272177941519257600
On a related note I found this an interesting read.
https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard...