And if they wanted to limit potential civilian casualties, does confronting him in a mall full of people sound like a good idea?
Did you read any of my previous posts at all ? I literally mentionned my theory about ambushing him while he's out with friends could be a guarantee of sorts to limit the risks of him going on a rampage and injuring his friends (of even using them as leverage in a hostage manner).
Also, they aren't attacking him outright. They are asking him to
surrender peacefully which can be helped by the presence of pretty much all of his friends, as well as his identity being out, meaning him lashing out and massacring the law enforcement(?) would not only risk injuring his friends, but also destroy his image not as a vigilante hero, but as the person, since the deaths would be linked not to a faceless masked character but to the person underneath.
"Then why would they send armed forces" you'd ask ? Because of a simple thing. Plan for the best, prepare for the worst. On all accounts, the plan is solid enough, as it's based on the humanity in the MC. But if it fails and he does starts rampaging, they don't want to have sent pencil pushers armed only with smiles to the slaughter. At least armed forces have a slight chance of being severly injured instead of outright killed, and to slow him down while they evacuate as many civilians as possible.
When a madman takes hostages and threaten to blow everything up, cops don't sent the nice old neighbor lady. They send a guy with a bulletproof vest on.
You can't have it both ways, either he was considered to be such a danger that the cops went in gung-ho at the first opportunity regardless of possible civilian casualties or he wasn't and they could have then confronted him in a less public setting with far less chances of civilian casualties if things went bad.
If you think threat are met, by law enforcement, by just going guns blazing with total disregard for collateral casualties, you live in a very fucked up country, friend, and I'm very sorry for you.