You know what... fuck that!

The officer isn't making those decisions based off the danger being back on the streets in 15 minutes, are they?

Well, what the officer was thinking in this situation in general is clearly being heavily debated. I think it's a bit off topic for the true context of the situation, since the decision made is so controversial.

They're trying their best to simulate a real cop and in their mind, that criminal is facing serious time if they're caught.

This is what matters, obviously there has to be some kind of standard operating procedure for when it is and is not appropriate to throw a textbook copy/paste from real life into a situation. Everything can't be "just do what a real cop would do and pretend it will work out because RP". The situation has to be healthy for continuity of the business model and server health.

When we're talking about making this decision specifically, the criminal escaping to lay low actually lowers the danger within the literal player environment. This player ends up wanted and is forced to adjust gameplay to lay low. If you want a real life scenario where a police officer would make such a choice, consider a situation where a police officer chooses to disengage from a high speed chase because it is endangering too many lives.

Instead, we end up gunning down the player and satisfy the imaginary threat scenario by saying "It's what a real cop would do, just pretend for the sake of RP". I don't think I will be convinced that's the best answer for the continuity of business and overall health of the server. If you need to be convinced can't be a baseline/static go to answer, I don't know why I decided to respond i the first place.

/r/LivestreamFail Thread Parent Link - twitch.tv