Another Police Thread

I know theres been a lot recently, but I had an interesting discussion with a friend the other day, and I hope to continue it out here. Any assholes on either sides of the argument: use the other threads, lets try to keep this one intelligent.

Heres the circumstance. We were watching worlds wildest police chases (no comment) and two officers go out to a car that was speeding at night. Two people inside. The driver gets out, so the first cop goes to talk to him and the second goes over to the passenger side. The passenger is reluctant to tell his name, so the cop asks him to step out of the car. The guy does so, but as the cop is searching him, the dude pulls a gun and holds it to the cops head. The first cop sees this, and backs up, drawing his own gun. The second officer suddenly makes a move, forcing the gun away from his own head and reaching for his own. The dudes gun goes off, missing the cop hes tussling with by inches. The man takes off and both cops open fire, but miss him. He's captured later, and he was a fleeing convict. End result - he got life.

Now, WWPC didnt give us many background elements (for example, why he was in jail the first time), but my friend immediately brought up the cry of bullshit. He claims that in numerous cases, if you fuck with a cop, you're going to get fucked back harder than say you would had the cop been instead an average Joe. He thought that this is unfair, and that the same crime exacted on a police officer rather than just a citizen will always net you a tougher than normal sentence. More so, its this inequality thats lending to police having superiority issues and over abusing their power.

Obviously, I have a different take than him. But I'm interested to hear what you have to say? Are police different than an average person in terms of a judge deciding a sentence? Should they be? Does this cause the disparity, or does the disparity cause something else? Should a guy get the same sentence if he shoots a everyday person verses a uniformed police officer trying to arrest him? Thoughts?