Don't take this wrong, and I'll lead with the fact that post law enforcement, I eventually gravitated to becoming a CRC certified Vocational Rehabilitation counselor, eventually moving to federal administration and then a state director position.
VR counselors specialize in getting people with disabilities into competitive integrated community based employment, as well as getting people injured on the job back into suitable employment that reflects their interests, abilities, residual skills, and transferable skills. A large part of that is developing reasonable accommodations when required to ensure the person can perform all the essential functions of the job.
From the perspective of having been an LEO, and having been a master level CRC certified VR counselor, an employment goal of "police officer" would not be an employment goal I would approve on an employment plan given the risks the disability would ultimately pose to the officer, his fellow officers and to some extent the public he would be serving, especially given the apparent choice not to opt for an artificial limb.
I just don't see any way to fully accommodate the essential functions of the job.
Now…admittedly law enforcement has evolved since I was an officer in the mid to late 1980s, and in particular open hand skills seemed to have devolved and or been devalued as have de escalation skills. However, I still don't think a one handed police officer is suite to the demands of the job.
To be fair, the state/federal VR program has also changed over the years. It's lost its focus on serving individuals who can achieve independence through substantial competitive integrated employment and has instead become focused on serving persons with intellectual disabilities who are often unable to prepare for or enter truly integrated and competitive employment with enough hours per week to achieve any degree of independence. Those individuals would be better served by state agencies that serve persons with intellectual disabilities, particularly as that field has moved to a philosophy of work being a normal activity. Those entitlement based programs annd agencies should be placing their own individuals rather than using the flat funded and eligibility based VR program as the program of first resort. Those individuals have swamped the VR program with the result that the individuals the program can best serve are relegated to wait lists and are often never served - and have no other agency to assist them in becoming productive, self sufficient tax paying citizens.
Similarly, the VR program has lost its focus of getting people off of SSDI and various forms of public support and many state VR programs are now focused on getting people just enough work that their SSI and or SSDI eligibility isn't threatened, which reduces or eliminates the return on investment nature of tue program that has been at its heart since the Eisenhower administration.
