I was going to make this point above as well but it felt to cynical. Ultimately, I think its just a case of normal people having to respond to an extremely rare and kinetic situation with no playbook as every decision you make is scrutinized and broadcast in HD with full commentary. I'm honestly curious how many times the "hostage negotiator" has had to show up and negotiate for hostages. It's hard to imagine what success looks like in that role as (luckily) each of these situations are rare and highly unique. Outside of incidents that good information about the legitimacy of the threat are established, it seems like we should put a lot more effort into tracking down people who make false claims and doing PR on the perpetrators of false allegations. Right now it seems like the risk to the "informant" of a SWAT is low and the victim is insanely high. If we narrow these odds without destroying privacy and freedom, that would be the best case.
"Normal people with no playbook"? These are police SWAT teams we're talking about, the entire reason the specialization exists is to make them highly trained to deal with these situations.
Of course, in America that training tends to take the form of learning how to use their military-style weaponry to kill the Bad Guys(tm), not eg how to deescalate a situation.
Hey, its us, whats that make, 45 times? Oh, 46, really? Well go ahead and stop what you are doing, put your hands up and watch a bunch of armed strangers violate your private space. Dont be mad, its highly irregular for us to get these calls, we have no idea how to better respond, like just giving you a call and checking in on you.
