I would like to embrace your conspiracy theory …

That pic is way too generous with them fries lol

I legit lol’d at this. But in all seriousness - where I work, every action/decision requires me to articulate why. So if I do draw my gun I have to be able to articulate in a consistent and reasonable manner. If I don’t draw my gun, I also have to be able to articulate that. For example, if a man with a rifle is running from me toward a school full of children and I decide to not draw my gun I will absolutely need to be able to articulate that. If an 80 year old in a wheel chair steals a KitKat using no weapons and I draw my gun I better have a good reason. I can’t just say I felt threatened I have to articulate it and it needs to be consistent with everyone’s body cams and witness statements and the physical evidence itself. I’m more than aware that not every department is like this though…

Depends on the situation… you can get so many calls that sound the same but when you get there nothing about them are the same… if someone is jn their home talking to the suicide hotline that is different than someone who calls for armed police in a manor that warrants a high priority response the waiting in your home with a weapon… it COULD be harmless but that behavior is textbook suicide by cop and it happens more than people talk about.

Well i think we agree on your last point - and I might have assumed that the scenario is one where the person raises the gun toward the officer. Just having a gun isn’t always a crime, thinking someone might have a gun isn’t sufficient on its own either. Is this in reference to a specific encounter/incident or are we speaking hypothetically?

I will add though that the military rules of engagement might not do well to be applied to civilians at least that’s the mindset where I am. The idea that the police are like the military has some purpose I’m sure but at the same time it can be destructive - soldiers aren’t dealing with combatants who are in mental turmoil and police aren’t in war zones… I really like to emphasize that because its important to treat everyone with respect and not come in to every situation like its going to be hostile. The way I see it is my job isn’t to just come in and clean up the streets - it’s to enable to public to go about their lives as uninhibited as possible.

This is a legitimate problem - there are educated people that view the position negatively but also wouldn’t join. So the spots stay open for more uneducated people. Some departments are now requiring degrees and new recruits are put through some degree program before starting but that’s only in some major cities… so yeah people are gonna discourage you but keep your head up and keep that attitude, identify the idiots as early as possible (they will make themselves known quick). That’s what I did - I left my cushy engineering desk job, took a crazy paycut and put on the badge… and I talked a women off the top of a parking garage on my second month (didn’t draw my gun or anything 😲🙄)

This is suicide by cop, OP was asking about situations where the subject is not a threat to anyone. A suicidal person with a gun is a threat as they can turn the weapon around and any time (and they often do).