Did Presence of Citizen Journalist prevent a shooting?

On Sunday at approx. 11a.m. a m an climbed onto the Spanish American War Memorial statue on Dolores Street near Market Street in San Francisco. Minutes later emergency personnel arrived on scene. Ladders were put-up and firefighters were ready to rescue him from the statue. But the person did not want to be rescued, so eventually the San Francisco "special hostage negotiation team" were called in to help and coax him down. He stayed up there until 2:30pm. The whole time I was on scene, no guns were ever displayed, no non-lethal weapons were ready, and no bean bag carrying guns were to be seen. The man came down on his own volition.
I arrived 10 minutes after hearing the chatter on the police scanner, and left when he came down. I did not get footage of him coming down because the camera battery died, but he was taken into custody gently. Other news entities reported the man was high on meth.

So did the presence of a photographer or citizen journalist make a difference in how this alleged erratic man was handled by the police?

Because historically scenes like that don't end well for the perpetrator.