You see, this is the wonder of due process. In a mostly-reasonable jurisdiction, police officers are required to, first and foremost and at the very least, identify themselves clearly as law-enforcement, and with that carries the implicit suggestion that "you need to cooperate and not fight back". No identification and they might as well have arrested you without reading you your Miranda rights.
> Police officers in America, and most other countries, need to adhere to a completely different and much more lax set of rules than most people
I wouldn't call it lax but I'd settle for slightly different. Of course, a lot can be said about abuses of this "privilege to be different", which is maybe why observers would say law-enforcement is held to a relaxed standard.
It is different but not lax because:
- ordinary citizens can't break down doors into private property but law-enforcement can if they have probable cause (Have you watched Breaking Bad?) or a search warrant. Good luck obtaining a search warrant as an ordinary citizen, if that's even possible.
- ordinary citizens are not ever expected to result to fisticuffs and if they do so, they would face fees or even jail. But law-enforcement can do so except there's gonna be a fuck ton of paper work afterwards and, should their reason for resorting to force be successfully challenged, face suspension or dismissal but hardly ever fees or jail time.
Of course the MOST IMPORTANT caveats here are (a) law varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, even for reasonably-democratic territories and (b) this is HN playing r/legaladvice, which is fun but not as productive IMO.