Basic gear should always be designed for what kind of situations you expect to encounter.

Perhaps completely baffling to Americans, some police forces in the world dont carry guns at all and will have rules ("only when you expect to need one") or seperate forces that deal with firearm policing. This puts emphasis on de-escalating violence and only using it as a last resort.

If your human police is expected to regularly interact with Gnolls that arent violent to authorities then they'll not need violent lethal weapons to pacify them. Through talking and social capabilities designed to interact with Gnolls you could achieve most of your goals.

So what if it does turn violent? Assuming Gnolls have higher sense of smell then the threat of pepperspray can be a massive deterrent for attack, if not stop an ongoing attack if you do use it. Other options are force multipliers like a weapon stick as well as basic armor designed to stop slashing attacks. Hell you could put a layer of pepperspray or similar in the armor which releases when something rips into it, like a Gnoll biting down.

Basic gear should always be designed for what kind of situations you expect to encounter.

Perhaps completely baffling to Americans, some police forces in the world don't carry guns at all and will have rules ("only when you expect to need one") or separate forces that deal with firearm policing. This puts emphasis on de-escalating violence and only using it as a last resort.

If your human police is expected to regularly interact with Gnolls that aren't violent to authorities then they'll not need violent lethal weapons to pacify them. Through talking and social capabilities designed to interact with Gnolls you could achieve most of your goals.

So what if it does turn violent? Assuming Gnolls have a higher sense of smell, the threat of pepper-spray can be a massive deterrent for attack, if not stop an ongoing attack if you do use it. Other options are force multipliers like a weapon stick as well as basic armor designed to stop slashing attacks. Hell, you could put a layer of pepper-spray or similar in the armor which releases when something rips into it, like a Gnoll biting down.