Is swatting a thing outside of the US? I've never heard of it happening here in the Netherlands. It seems to me that the concept of swatting requires a not-to-competent shoot-first-ask-questions-later police force. If the US police force uniquely has these qualities, it seems prudent to reorganise it.
US police can and are frequently shot and killed. US citizens can legally carry guns. That's the difference. US policing is different because the risks are different. Moreover, if there's a report of a hostage situation or gun violence, there is a chance that the situation is real and unfolding live. These are two very different lists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_office... https://en.wikiped…
I'm struggling to find statistics more recent than 2019, but perhaps skipping the anomalous COVID years is for the best. Anyway, in 2019 [0], 89 officers died in the line of duty, of which just under half (44) were due to gun violence. The number of full time police officers in 2019 was in the region of 700k [1]. That's a fatality rate of under 13 per 100,000 - certainly higher than the national average of 3.6, but far less than jobs highlighted as "occupations with high fatal work injury rates" [2] (who are mostly tradespeople or people that operate heavy machinery).
[0] https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-2019-st...
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/191694/number-of-law-enf...
[2] https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju...