So, ugh, we've talked about shitty police stuff before. I can't describe how much I want to not have to do this, but I can't help it at this point. I've been trying to hold my tongue for a while here, hoping it would get better, but my hopes are often vain and counter to the impulses of human nature. So I'm just going to say it.
If you choose (and in our culture it is fucking always a choice) to go into law enforcement you need to understand that you aren't a person while you're wearing your uniform. Police officers are servants, says it right there in the oft repeated, usually disregarded motto, protect and serve. Any system of policing that values the safety and comfort of officers over the safety of absolutely all civilians, criminal and casual observer alike, is despotism. You went into a field where a certain (astronomically low) percentage of the population feels the need to kill you, don't fucking antagonize people. The role of a police force is to protect the populace and ensure that those who commit crimes against that populace are processed by the legal system arbitrated by the society. It is absolutely fucking never okay for a police officer to kill. It doesn't matter if your life is in jeopardy. It doesn't matter if you feel entitled or justified. You are not a person. You, as a police officer, are a construct manifested by our society to make sure that due process is maintained. Any law that protects you above a citizen is tyrannic, and system that allows you to kill is, at best, catastrophically unjust. Police officers are representatives of justice, as the society they serve defines it. No extra privileges, no special treatment. They are mechanisms as long as they are acting in an official capacity, and civilians the second they aren't.
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