Personally, I favor hitting people with billy clubs, 
   because it leaves evidence of what happened and it 
   requires the police to actually take physical action 
   against another human

Like you say, there's not really a "good" choice, and I am not defending officers' actions during incidents like the killing (murder, IMO) of Elijah McCain.

But those police batons break bones. Also, there's evidence of ketamine sedation: they need to summon paramedics to perform the injection, etc.

So, I don't know. I'm sure we at least agree that the answer is to avoid letting things escalate to that point so frequently.