I can understand that, but I recommend caution when it comes to judgement. Combat is every bit as technical as system architecture, and I think it requires related experience to judge fairly. Movies prepare you to critique a fighter about as well as they prepare you to critique a system security posture. Which is to say, not at all.
The best way to understand why police react the way they do is get a little experience with the real thing: watch footage of actual confrontations. Here are some examples:
https://youtu.be/uyEE_IpjstA https://youtu.be/2mnTE85LYFU https://youtu.be/p6mds5tDqDw
Combat is fast. When someone makes a sudden move, you have to react immediately or you will lose.
I'm mad that this went down the way it did, too, but from the description, it is very understandable. It is tragic that people with no combat background just don't understand what looks threatening and why. You'd no doubt consider it foolhardy to point an airsoft pistol at a policeman, but probably don't understand that a movement that could be a fast concealed weapon draw is just as threatening.
I do a little martial arts, and we train that if someone is hiding their hand, assume it contains a knife or gun. If you have your hand behind you or in your pocket and move it fast, I have to react as if it's an attack, as that's the only way to avoid it. It takes too long to identify a weapon.
Look at some videos of knife attacks, for example:
https://youtu.be/dqnwsljTVt8 https://youtu.be/ts2LCbDQkeg
They are fast and sudden. The only way you can hope to defend them is to assume a hand you don't see is about to hit you with a knife.
Which is why police are jumpy. This is the environment they work in and what they train for. If your day to day life involves no violence, your ideas about what's reasonable in that context don't come from applicable experience.
> I said yesterday that, as a hearing-impaired person, if I'm ever in a position where police are pointing guns at me and shouting instructions, I expect I will be shot. I'm honestly not sure what I can do to prevent that.
Move slowly. Keep your hands very visible and very obviously empty. Even if you can't hear the officer's commands, moving slowly and keeping your hands visible will keep you from appearing suddenly threatening, which should let you get the situation sorted out.
I can't help you if you run into a policeman who is a bully, but most of these tragedies are misunderstandings between good people. The very best way to avoid that is to do everything slowly and deliberately. Don't panic. Just move slowly and carefully. Pretend the cop is a dinosaur or something and sudden movement will provoke him.