Literally this. It isn’t even a question if the home is “sufficiently expensive” - if a criminal is holed up somewhere where no one else is, try to negotiate their surrender. It’s likely that it will end in better outcomes for the criminal, police, and the homeowner.
The same logic applies with high speed pursuits. You’ve likely got a helicopter in the air following them - back off a bit until things cool down.
But the role of the police isn’t to deescalate and once you acknowledge that, these decisions make more sense.
”Desperate and potentially dangerous people in Europe are, therefore, more likely than their American counterparts to encounter well-educated and restrained police officers.
However, explanations of elevated police lethality in the US should focus on more than police policy and behavior. The charged encounters that give rise to American deadly force also result from weak gun controls, social and economic deprivation and injustice, inadequate mental health care and an intense desire to avoid harsh imprisonment.
Future research should examine not only whether American police behave differently but also whether more generous, supportive and therapeutic policies in Europe ensure that fewer people become desperate enough to summon, provoke or resist their less dangerous police.”
Other countries don’t have such a militarized police force. I mean that both in terms of the arms and equipment they use and the attitude they have toward suspects (treating them as “the enemy”).
The flip side of this ad absurdist argument is that if a suspect holed up in MoMA, it’s okay to burn it down because he shot three of the maybe fifteen bullets he has in his possession? No, no it is not.
Waiting out a suspect who has already shot at the police is dangerous. Any mistake that left a person exposed to be shot at could be fatal. Protecting life is a higher priority than protecting property.
The same logic applies with high speed pursuits. You’ve likely got a helicopter in the air following them - back off a bit until things cool down.
But the role of the police isn’t to deescalate and once you acknowledge that, these decisions make more sense.