It isn't their job to help people. They're bureaucrats, it's their job to show up after and take notes, give interviews and file paperwork. There is no reason to give these people guns, tanks, helicopters, or bombs -- giving them cars is a stretch (we have mass transit, after all).

The US Postal Service has a better justification for being armed and having bombs and guns than the police do -- they at least have a positive mandate to defend the mail in their custody from robbery.