Yup. Fair fights aren’t in the job description. We’ll usually do what we reasonably can to avoid hands on until we have a strong advantage either in numbers or the suspect choosing to be compliant. If the suspect chooses to initiate getting physical against one or two officers, you can bet your ass the officers involved aren’t gonna pull many punches. One bad punch that lands, and I could be incapacitated and disarmed. Even one bad twist of my knee and I could be dealing with long term career-altering disability.
Our tools have improved, and we have a lot of leeway to use them to avoid something worse. The new tasers rolling out in Canada (X7) are pretty sweet.