You are mistaken in your take on why the police have gotten more tactical training.
In the late 80’s and nineties cops were getting killed using patrol officer tactics to address incidents where people were armed heavily or the their history showed them to have a propensity to fight with or shoot at the police.
In response to that...to officers getting swiss cheesed by rifles or shot standing at the door....other tactics were explored. Risk matrixes were invented and SWAT was created and refined to minimize risks to officers.
If we keep laws on the books making certain chemicals illegal...and/or the profit in those chmicals make it so people will use weapons to steal or protect them....then there will continue to be a need for the newer tactical means of dealing with thise risks.
Other incidents and scenarios also would call for these same tactics.
This isn’t a defense to small agencies buying cool gear and booting indoors for fun while pretending owning a ram and entry vests make you a taactical operator a highly skilled officer.
I don't see the trend that you are talking about: Year-by-Year Breakdown of Law Enforcement Deaths throughout U.S. History. There was a spike in the 30s, presumably due to Prohibition. And another spike in the 70s and early 80s, presumably due to the breakdown in law and order in big cities that were governed by liberals. But there definitely was no spike in the late 80s or 90s and the number of yearly LEO deaths seems to have been fairly stable since the 1980s even though the population has increased from 227 million in 1980 to 314 million in 2012.