I would have to say, as in this case, the majority of the time they do have a gun. The number of times that a shooting turns out to be an egregious violation by the police, in my opinion, is quite low.
That is true for many kinds of events, including most crimes, terrorist attacks, etc. But as humans we tend to be concerned with injustice and suffering even if the probability of the event occurring is very low. And we tend to prepare for situations that are in actuality quite rare.
That's true - or a knife.
I actually track police shootings, I've done so for a number of years. About 97-98% are justified, even if thinly, but where are many, probably 20-30 a year, more than you would think, where the video shows up, and the police version turns out to be a lie.
The Crutcher shooting will probably turn out that way - and where that event happened so close to this, the people aren't going to trust the police.
The protestors are wrong, but the police also need to clean up their act, and the bootlickers, with their knee-jerk reactions, are just as bad as the "hate cops" crowd.
Both sides are getting people killed.