You take the job knowing the risks. If you can’t handle the risks and stress without acting like an asshole to the general public (and much more frequently to your spouse and kids) then you are the wrong “somebody” to be a cop.
I have limited tolerance for cops and their self-martyrdom and for non-LE who put them up on a pedestal.
Garbagemen have dangerous jobs and actually do a lot more to promote public welfare, on a day-to-day basis, than your average state highway patrol, but nobody kisses their asses and thinks they warrant special treatment. Think I’m wrong about garbagemen? Let the garbagemen and the police both go on strike in a major metropolitan area and see who the general public wants back more.
I suspect than answer would be different than you imagine.
There is the “somebody” who was a security guard at the library as a second job. He declared, “On the street, I AM the law!”
There was the somebody, a city Policeman and the husband of a coworker who declared that attitude to be ridiculous. He learned to fly and became a commercial pilot.
I’m not interested in martyrdom for LEOs, nor do I like the tendency for them to get over-egoed regarding their jobs. I consider them people doing a job, and they deserve to go home at night injury free.
LEOs occupy a unique type of job. It’s a dangerous job, where the focus of the job is on a group that actively wants you to fail at your job. They are also frequently violent, or have diminished capacity, and your success may result in a profound reduction in their quality of life. As a result, you are frequently in a situation where the job focus is on someone who may potentially use violence to resist your actions.
This is not true in other dangerous professions. A tree limb isn’t trying to save itself when it falls on a lumberjack, a crab pot isn’t worried about spending 6 months in jail when it cracks a fisherman in the head. It’s just bad luck, or poor choices, in an industry where that can cause injury/death.
So, the guy who won’t take his hands out of his pockets… The cop doesn’t know if he’s just confused, or stupidly defiant, or trying to decide whether to pull out an icepick and get stabby. Unlike me, the cop can’t just run away, and let the guy calm down on his own, and standing there waiting is practically an invitation for option#3. The option most likely to let the LEO go home vertically inclined (and without criminal charges of his own) is the one I expect him to take, that is either tase the guy, or take him down suddenly.