The claim is not "Citizens need to take responsibility for de-escalating situations," the claim is "If the citizenry, as a whole, were less deferential to polic

The claim is not "Citizens need to take responsibility for de-escalating situations," the claim is "If the citizenry, as a whole, were less deferential to police and more aware of when police were overstepping their authority, police would be less inclined to abuse their authority." It's not the job of any individual citizen to fix the police, but it sure is the job of the democratic society as a whole to fix it (because if you make it the police's job, they're certainly not going to actually do it).