Politeness is fine and dandy, but when you extend the basic rules of being a decent human into other aspects of society, this whole civilization thing just falls apart.
These very real people who found themselves faced with extraordinary circumstances -- and reacted by ramping a flaming police car into those circumstances.
In the course of building fictional worlds full of magic and wonder, game makers have thrown in a bunch of incredibly disturbing elements they're hoping you don't notice.
The problem with our perception of history is that, over the years, the combined forces of Hollywood, gossip, and biased sources have come together to form an indestructible Voltron of ignorance.