yeah but that then is more related to validity of killing rather than the state of police - a tfu with full armour and an m4 in attack stance can easily just be sprayed in the back for no reason and they'd have no chance
either way, as a lone pistol cop, not only are you not supposed to win shootouts, you aren't even really supposed to show up to shootouts. just gather any evidence you can from checking out the scene from a distance, as it's pretty obvious that any attempts of confronting 3+ suspects armed with rifles isn't going to end up going well for you and it'll just end up being a +1 to the body count.
you wouldn't expect to win that as a civ with a rifle, so why should you as a cop with a pistol?