I think that’s more of a cultural thing. The cops who were faced with the Boston bombers were still chasing them when they were throwing homemade explosives out the window trying to blow up the pursuing cruisers. It was mostly just city cops in the big gun / explosive / car chase battle, it wasn’t like some kind of elite FBI counterterrorism force, and they did fine. Some of the reporters who were following along said they actually didn’t realize how much danger they were in because of how calm the cops were about it. I have seen cops on YouTube react with far more fear and takes-hours-to-approach-the-car caution to one random unlicensed driver who refused to stop than cops in the Northeast will generally do for genuinely life-threatening situations.
Small-town Texas cops from conservative areas, yes, they’re cowardly bullies as a rule in my observation. That actually applies to a lot of parts of the South / Midwest of the US. I mean it is hard to generalize but here are my stereotypes of regional variation in US cops based on observing bodycam videos on YouTube which as we all know makes someone an expert:
Deep South, Midwest, Southwest: Authoritarian, often react with extreme almost comical levels of caution to any threat real or perceived, also tend to be low-level violent once the perceived threat doesn’t materialize and it’s just some hapless person they can be violent against. Putting the cuffs on after a tense situation? Better grab that person’s wrist and fold it hard so they’re in a lot of pain, that’ll help make the whole process go smoothly.
California: Just poorly trained, just in general a shit show if anything real is happening.
Florida: Unfazed by fairly extreme levels of wildness or violence, fairly qualified at dealing with it, also often dicks but not to an extreme level
Northeast (urban): Unfazed by anything and generally qualified, often pretty humane and reasonable, although NYPD is an exception
Northeast (rural / suburbs): Mostly as for urban, but some are more as in the Deep South
I think that’s more of a cultural thing. The cops who were faced with the Boston bombers were still chasing them when they were throwing homemade explosives out the window trying to blow up the pursuing cruisers. It was mostly just city cops in the big gun / explosive / car chase battle, it wasn’t like some kind of elite FBI counterterrorism force, and they did fine. Some of the reporters who were following along said they actually didn’t realize how much danger they were in because of how calm the cops were about it. I have seen cops on YouTube react with far more fear and takes-hours-to-approach-the-car caution to one random unlicensed driver who refused to stop than cops in the Northeast will generally do for genuinely life-threatening situations.
Small-town Texas cops from conservative areas, yes, they’re cowardly bullies as a rule in my observation. That actually applies to a lot of parts of the South / Midwest of the US. I mean it is hard to generalize but here are my stereotypes of regional variation in US cops based on observing bodycam videos on YouTube which as we all know makes someone an expert: