From my perspective the vast majority of local police are poorly trained in firearms. This is aggravated by the fact that almost all now carry high capacity semi-auto, which require a great deal more training to handle safely and shoot in crisis situations without recourse to the “spray and pray” method. I have never seen any evidence suggesting there was/is a compelling reason for most cops to carry those kinds of guns.
“I have never seen any evidence suggesting there was/is a compelling reason for most cops to carry those kinds of guns.”
Well, I think it’s like this: 99.99% of the time, they would be fine with just a revolver. Then there’s that 0.01% scenario, where they have some maniac criminals with a real arsenal who outgun the police. All the cops in the country hear about those cases, and then they want to make sure that never happens to them.
“...I have never seen any evidence suggesting there was/is a compelling reason for most cops to carry those kinds of guns...”
When training to draw, aim and fire, a Glock is dang near the same as a revolver, which cops have carried forever. The biggest difference is how to deal with malfunctions. Otherwise, a Glock is no different from a revolver to shoot: “Point Gun; Pull Trigger”. Simple.
I think the key point of your post was training for “crisis situations” and with these particular officers, I would wager the outcome would have been same/similar regardless of the handgun they happened to be holding. They violated at least two of the four basic safety rules drilled into them on day one of their firearms training.
Had they had some other pistol with (hypothetically) a myriad of complicated safeties, none of those safeties would likely have been engaged. They were in the act of looking for a known threat or clearing a location of potential threats, would have had their guns out, safeties off and ready to fire. Their first mistake was having their finger already on the trigger when their fear, apprehension and stress levels were up - apparently to the point they were losing fine motor control. It just went downhill from there.
The firearms instructors and field-training officers who “passed” these particluar cops are in need of some soul-searching as well.