Okay Finny, then you think officers should leave an armed man acting belligerent there and drive away.
If you happen to be a next door neighbor and this guy gets angry enough to fire off a few rounds as the police drive off, who is at fault if one of those rounds enters your home and your daughter head is splattered against her bedroom wall?
The officers cannot simply drive away.
They aren’t safe doing it, and the neighbors aren’t safe if they do it either.
They don't have to drive away, or maybe they should. I'd think they might stick around, depending.
If you happen to be a next door neighbor and this guy gets angry enough to fire off a few rounds as the police drive off, who is at fault if one of those rounds enters your home and your daughter head is splattered against her bedroom wall?
The guy who shot the gun. That's whose fault. Notwithstanding all the legalities of suing the cops. It's quite straightforward.
They aren’t safe doing it, and the neighbors aren’t safe if they do it either.
Now, DoughtyOne, you know that's a total crap shoot as to how "safe" people are when armed cops are around and sense a "top dog" challenge. Way too many innocents or light miscreants end up dead because somebody had the bright idea of calling the cops.
It's the attitude you defend that is so disturbing. I see that they didn't kill the guy in this story, so at least he wasn't shot dead, which is a good thing. And it's not really even about this so much as it was your original words that just are like a red light flashing: I wouldn’t be too quick to dump on the responding officers. This guy may have had a attitude thinking himself to be the top dog on scene. We’ll see how it plays out."
If he was dead, you'd still be thinking the same thing as casually. All I can say is people with that mindset, thinking for a nanosecond that someone who doesn't submit to "top dog" status of civil servants is justification for said servants to shoot or kill that someone ... are better suited to be in the military than as lawmen civil servants among free Americans.