Who took the mission? Who knew of the risk of that mission? The Pilot. So the fault lies with the Pilot. Not the police.
Not when innocent passengers, who have absolutely no idea who else is embarking, are also on the ship. Stop pretending the situation is so morally simple.
We also have to remember there a lot of old west type rules in Elite Dangerous not the rules of today.. It not like every system populated and have police that are trained by a large government. Some of the system could be a group of people that found a place to live and a way to make a living and hired a few Pilots to protect them and call them police. Even if they did not have Police training at a government. Kinda like the Old West. So they made their own rules.
Good, finally an articulate argument. You're getting better!
Now that being said : That "not all systems" have a police force trained by a large government is
not an excuse for every single cop in the galaxy to
behave like a murderer by default.
Would it be interesting for different systems to have different police protocols, with some being very merciful and others being essentially a totalitarian army? Yes!
Is it a good thing that (for now) all systems have police that is - way worse - than the wild west and actually behave like a trigger-happy totalitarian army? NO!
You see, instead of telling the OP that's it's all on them and all their fault, you could advocate for the game to present a diversified set of police AI that vary depending on the system, probably linked to the system's political structure. That'd be a lot more constructive.