> instead of the US approach where a traffic stop can involve pointing your gun at the suspect...

Realistically though, for that to work the US needs a sweeping reform of drug and gun laws. Right now, if I'm a drug mule with a ton of meth in my trunk and get stopped on some lonely road, I have the choice between shooting the cop and maybe get away or getting a life in jail for the drugs.

Here in Germany, you usually get out after 5, 6 years as a simple mule, and our cops (unless you're on an international route where cops can claim Schengen border duty rights) can't simply demand to open your trunk unless they have reasonable suspicion - and it's really hard to get your hand on a gun. As a result, our cops don't have to be afraid for their life at a random traffic stop.

There's a reason why cops are so trigger happy in the US, and it goes way beyond shoddy training.

I've seen part of police training in a big city and was impressed. They have a good portion of their training already on all the different methods of deescalation. With simulators (I tried them it is pretty impressive and immersive), role-play and so on. My guess is that the problem is after training.

I ran a simulator system for a couple of years for a military law course. The idea was to give those in the course first-hand experience with ROE/RUF concerns through the eyes of the people they'd be writing ROE/RUF for.

The scenarios presented were laughable, badly-acted and completely unrealistic. Worse, every single one ended, by default, with the suspect pulling out a gun and shooting at the user. All of them. This is, of course, completely counter to reality.

One could say that the issue is then the quality of these systems, but the fact that, apparently, it has been a viable business for going on a decade shows me that the issue isn't being taken seriously be their customers - that is, police departments and their trainers. The issue is, in fact, the institution as a whole. They're fundamentally incapable of reforming themselves.

No these were interactive scenarios, with a human behind the controls. So it really depends on the human of course. But you can select where the situation goes, raise the tone of voice or aggressiveness of the actor (real actor videos smoothly integrated) of course the operator can make it shoot and you also need to simulate that. The subject in the simulator has a prop taser and gun that work pretty realisticly (blank bullets and no voltage of course). I don't know how common this kind of training is across US probably not that much.

Right. The default (or, at least, the choice heavily weighted by system) was the shot ending. I could choose to allow the scenario to progress to a surrender, but there was no instance where a gun or knife could not possibly be produced. Ostensibly, these scenarios are meant to train police for realistic encounters; that is, there SHOULD be a number, if not a majority, that don't end in violence, even if the user fails to de-escalate properly.