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Notes -
Comparing the homicide rates of police and "average citizen" is flawed. The “average citizen” is not the same thing as the “average law-abiding citizen”. The cohort used to calculate the risk of death due to homicide for the "average citizen" includes violent criminals who make up the vast majority of homicide victims. This group is excluded from joining the police force creating a sampling bias that distorts the comparison you’re making.
Additionally, you're conflating the risk level after implementing mitigation strategies with the inherent danger of the job. Police engage in work with high-severity hazards of varying likelihood. They employ risk mitigation strategies that reduce the potential severity (e.g., wearing ballistic vests) and the potential likelihood (e.g., situational awareness training).
The effectiveness of these risk mitigation strategies likely contributes to the lower fatality rates among police officers, masking the inherent dangers of the job. So claiming police officers have a low risk of being killed, so they don't need to employ such strict mitigation techniques, is flawed. It's akin to arguing that because few firefighters die on the job nowadays, entering burning buildings isn't actually dangerous and firefighters overly cautious.
The comparison to commercial tree trimmers is also flawed, as the nature and unpredictability of threats faced by police officers are fundamentally different. Unlike tree trimmers, who face primarily environmental hazards, police officers confront unpredictable, potentially hostile human actors. This introduces a level of situational volatility and stress that is not comparable to most other professions, including high-risk manual labor jobs.
I hear what you're saying and some of those are valid points. I would add that when comparing to other dangerous jobs, they all take mitigation and safety equipment into account as well. They don't just count tree trimmers killed without a helmet. Criminals, just like cops, are also citizens, their lives do count towards statistical death rates and can be included in national averages. A counter point is that not all cops work in places like south side chicago, yet most act like they do. I certainly understand that it can be a stressful job when no one is ever really happy to see you and you're dealing with a lot of the worst people on their worst day, I've had good and bad encounters with cops, 99% of the time while driving; I'm always polite, there really was no excuse for the bad encounters and it certainly soured me on the whole profession from a young age.
To quote the late great Warren Zevon. -"The Sheriff's got his problems too, he will surely take them out on you"
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