Not trying to start a flame war here, but its not a fantasy. There are 36,000 gun deaths, and over 100,000 gun related injuries in the US every year (thats roughly 3000 per week). There was an armed man who lead a high-speed chase and shot at police. The odds are very high he will injure or kill another person, its not a fantasy to think the police are thinking worst case.
https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-america/
We are looking at this article with hindsight that his only crime was taking the belt, but you can't know that _at the time_, and given that these officers see shootings, robberies, and murders on a regular basis, its impossible to make the assumption that "well he's probably just harmless, lets wait this out".
I pose this simple question -- if someone broke into your house, armed, and fired shots. Would you wait it out, or assume the worst? If you assumed the worst, and that meant sacrificing your property to possibly save your life and the life of your family, but then it turned out the guy was just looking for a few items to sell, and wasn't really that bad, would you say you made the wrong call?