Actually, the less training and self-restraint an officer has, the more incentive there is for a target to do everything they can to flee or resist. If a town trusts its local police to be fair and professional, criminals are more likely to accept the offer of "Drop everything and put your hands on the ground." They trust they'll survive the arrest and avoid anything worse than a rough perp walk. But if the arresting officers are known to brutally beat and pepper spray people they detain, I would expect people to resist detainment.
Last weekend, we saw video footage of a man executed while being restrained and with no weapon in his hands. At this point, reasonable people could believe an ICE officer trying to detain them is threatening their lives. When do self-defense laws kick in?
This person is face down on the ground being restrained by three officers. Is the pepper spray necessary here?
edit: I found a video of this event: https://old.reddit.com/r/minnesota/comments/1qjfxbj/ice_pepp...
It doesn't show what led up to this moment, but it appears the person was indeed resisting arrest. If you are not resisting arrest, you don't need three officers to pin you to the ground.
If three officers decide to push you to the ground and jump on top of you, you have three officers on top of you. This says nothing about whether you were resisting arrest or not.
Resisting arrest at least implies that you have some understanding that you are actually being arrested and by someone who at least notionally has some legal basis for doing so. It's why police officers will typically identify themselves and tell you under what you are suspected of during an arrest. If after that someone attempts to flee or fightback then sure.
I'm relatively sure spraying chemical irritants at point blank range is not following any reasonable use of force guidelines. They are just retaliating with force because it suits them.
Instead, people are getting killed and videos are coming out that seem very chaotic, where people with different predispositions than you can empathize with the police. If those videos were people getting arrested and pepper sprayed for speaking out and for helping each other, they would hit a lot harder for a much larger population.