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Would you want to risk innocent lives in the rooms below and above where the shooter was?

The windows (target) are about six feet tall.
The distance was about 200 yards.
200 yards for a 5.56mm is basically point blank - there would be no dialing in (fire and adjust).
The ceilings/floors (backstop of my inbound rounds) are made of concrete.

If I were an responding officer with a optic-equipped AR (I am NOT talking about a 200 yard shot with my service sidearm) that I knew and trusted and people were dropping all around me, you're damn right I would be shooting back (although I'm sure it would also be outside department policy).

Those who responded to the UT sniper might have missed the tower and their rounds would be landing on the other side of Austin, maybe hitting someone. That didn't stop them from trying to stop the guy.

If I were an responding officer with a optic-equipped AR (I am NOT talking about a 200 yard shot with my service sidearm) that I knew and trusted and people were dropping all around me, you're damn right I would be shooting back (although I'm sure it would also be outside department policy).

I would certainly hope I were not in the vicinity of any rooms above, below or behind the target. Your particular skills might be up to it, but from personal observation most police officers would be a danger to anyone for quite a distance around the shooter, especially at that range, 30 floors up, such that ballistics are not quite the same as one might be used to on a flat firing range.

If I were an responding officer with a optic-equipped AR (I am NOT talking about a 200 yard shot with my service sidearm) that I knew and trusted and people were dropping all around me, you're damn right I would be shooting back (although I'm sure it would also be outside department policy). Those who responded to the UT sniper might have missed the tower and their rounds would be landing on the other side of Austin, maybe hitting someone. That didn't stop them from trying to stop the guy.

I do get your point, though. It's triage time. The question is whether to risk killing innocents with your gun or risk having innocents killed by the bad guy's gun through your inaction. In real life, most cops have probably war-gamed this scenario and concluded that it's not worth losing a career and risking negligent homicide charges if they screw up and kill innocents. And I fully understand their perspective. It's really up to the higher-ups to have worked up a plan beforehand for scenarios like this, and provided emergency response teams with clear instructions as information filtered in.

Note that there's also a fog of war problem here. It's not so much that decision-makers are afraid of danger as they are of screwing up and killing innocents who had nothing to do with the attack. What if the guy was shooting at the real sniper, and they end up shooting a good guy with a gun while the bad guy got away?