I remember when this first happened. The guy acted like an idiot looking for trouble.
On the contrary, he acted ratoinally and with great restraint. In decades long ago, LEOs who tried such a stunt could expect to get shot in self defense, and a judge would uphold the self defense claims...in some jurisdictions. In other jurisdictions where the fix was in on the sidde of the local police, you did not have to actually do anything wrong or right to get arrested and die in jail.