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I think there are two competing trends in LE work here. On the one hand, you have a strong pressure to prevent/limit active shooter incidents like Beslan or Columbine that has led police departments to respond much more aggressively if they perceive they are dealing with that type of situation.
On the other hand, you have the situations like this one. If you are the responding officer and all you know is you've got a guy with a semi-auto rifle who has fired four shots so far, you've got the problem that every second you wait to engage may mean more dead people on the other side of it; but by engaging quickly, you may not have all the information you need to best solve the problem.
I don't see a real easy answer to that; but it does look like a containment approach would have served the officers well in this particular incident.
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