Maybe the cops shouldnt hire pansies that are scared to death all the time
I think it has more to do with training, culture, and environment than the lack bravery of the individual officers.
1. Obviously the departments put a lot of money into training their officers and prioritize safety like all companies so as to not lose a valuable asset. Thus defensive training is a high priority and that famous 21 foot rule trains officers to react with deadly force instead of de-escalating situations.
2. The culture appears (to me as an outsider) to be macho and increasingly paramilitary and becoming more so. The military style uniforms, military style recruit training, military weapons, military vehicles, "war on drugs", "thin blue line", etc. promote an an enemy-centric approach to policing instead of community involvement.
3. The environment some officers live and work in on a daily basis is not the same that you and I live in. We don't live in the same dimension as them. Our lives are generally comfortable and mundane and we generally only frequent hip, safe neighborhoods with people like us (I assume.) But police, especially on night shift, live in work in a nighttime world in low income neighborhoods where most people they deal with are intoxicated, on the fringes of society, and they are responding to violent crimes. So I think many of them lose perspective of what "normal" society is like where you don't have to constantly be hypervigilant.
