I’d much rather take my chances with crooks occasionally getting away vs. civilian carnage due to crashes by unqualified cops in overpowered police cars. They had high perf Mustangs and Camaros here in Indiana but phased them out for a variety of reasons (too small inside for fat cops) but also a lot of wreckage.
It's not the crooks getting away that was a problem. (They still can't outrun the radio.)
The problem was that the chase would go on for miles with a line of cop cars behind the perp car, simply because the CV never had enough HP to get out in front of it. And because the pursuit took forever and day, there could be a string of collateral damage behind it. (Turn on any COPS episode from 10 or more years ago.)
I think the LE argument for the Chargers was the same as the argument for better firearms some 20 years before: we need at least as much as the bad guys have.