A guy with not one, but two knives was just stopped today by German police. They shot him in the foot and he's now in the hospital. In contrast, American cops always claim that hitting the legs is not a reliable way to stop an attacker. They always act like they are in a military occupation zone with suicide bombers at every corner.
De-escalation doesn't get them to do the shooty-shooty part, and thats the best part of their day, they aren't trying to avoid it (especially once they confirmed there is no lethal weapon that would put them in any actual danger).
Seriously, that's the entire point of police. Or at least, that's the propaganda. Police exist to protect the citizens from criminals. They're given authority in the form of a badge, and power in the form of a gun, and they are expected to enforce the law as defined by our elected leaders and judicial appointees.
Cops are heroes. They risk their safety to enter situations without hesitation or concern for self preservation. They are trained to be as safe as possible, but there isn't a police officer alive who wouldn't claim to be willing to lay down their life for the life of a baby.
Unfortunately, in practice, that's not what we see. We do not see heroes protecting civilians. We see criminals protecting each other. We do not see selfless sacrifice and empathy. We see megalomaniacs protecting their power.
Good cops, true police officers, would all agree and say proudly, their lives don't matter. Not when it comes to being sure of your targets. Not when it comes to being sure of the threat. Not when it comes to being sure that lethal force is required to keep everyone safe. An officer who is so afraid of injury or death that they are willing to trade the life of a child to protect their own has no business being a cop. We should never tolerate the idea that blue lives matter.
Police exist to protect the citizens from criminals.
But they don't. They exist to protect the STATE from CITIZENS, in the same way the military exists to protect the state from foreign aggression. Police are the only people empowered to do violence to citizens of a state, and they do it on behalf if the interests of that state. That is their genuine and explicit reason for existing.
De-escalation is when they go from two guys pointing guns at you to one guy pointing a gun and one guy hitting you with an asp. And I am not joking. It relates to the use of force continuum.