Obligatory reminder that my personal opinions don't reflect the opinion of any of the agencies/governments I work for.

Street police deal with a lot of shit. Due to the nature of their work they face much greater dangers due to the nature of the unknown. In my half of the profession we get the benefit of knowing everyone around us is a convicted felon. Weirdly enough that makes things easier. We're also in the situation where use of force is scrutinized far more thanks to a plethora of cameras and other record keeping equipment.

There are very few situations we are authorized to use force first. Planned uses of force are essentially for cell extractions and little else. But this creates situations where good officers risk life and limb because when the cameras are on and the whole world will watch, we don't get to make the first move.