My exact words were:
The words "Who am I going to defend myself against? Because we have no dangerous animals, we don't do a lot of hunting and we usually don't live remote enough that cannot be remedied by calling the police." were meant to convey MY way of living where I LIVE, aka the Netherlands.
So no, we do not have police that leave when rioters start rioting, we have riot police who may bend back but as a whole do not "flee". These officers of the Mobiele Eenheid are basically normal officers who have been additionally trained and a Riot Police Unit are made up from normal protected police officers (full protection from legs to head with batons), then there are officers with dogs and mounted police. They use water cannons and usually give rioters only one way to move by blocking all other streets with special Riot police cars, big black ones with protected windows and wide enough to block streets reasonably easily and behind them are regular police who arrest those who try and escape. Between the protesters and the riot police are police officers in street clothes who pounce and arrest people and then move them behind the riot police line to have them removed from the scene. At the back of the mobiele eenheid there is one more unit and those are the armed units if gunmen are present among the rioters.
If a riot takes place or an area has to be evacuated/cleared, the police moves in a row with riot police trucks, mounted police, police dogs behind the first line of riot police, then there is the water cannon which has 2 functions, wet the protesters in cold weather and full on blasts in warmer weather.
You need a police education of 3 years and additional experience to be even considered for the Mobiele Eenheid/Riot police. Then they follow a 4 week training and several training exercises a year. Normally they use students or soldiers to provide real opposition during those training exercises. Besides the training exercises in deployment, you have to do mandatory fitness days.
For riots with armed people we have a unit from the military police with tank vehicles to break up armed riots.
Our riot police almost never uses tear gas, they don't use less lethal ammo, they overwhelm the rioters with a concerted trained concept. And they got their training mostly during the soccer riots and during the squatter riots.