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What do mean treated worse? Like legally or by the public?

There's a lot of context that goes into how the public and legal system determines how to "treat" someone. Publicly, how the story is framed makes a big difference.

"Local hero tragically taken too soon in car accident" gets a different reaction than "corrupt cop found dead in car crash"

Because the cops are the ones whose job it is to find criminals. Unfortunately they assume any crime committed against them takes priority.

There is a bit of sensationalism by the media, just because it sells papers or generates clicks, what have you.

There is also a "crashed into a cop car while it had its flashy lights on" issue too. Which also tends to get some attention.

Then we have an extra air of cops, firefighters, military personnel being heroes... going on at this time. So, that also comes into play.

In truth, it's all perception. But I don't think you have committed a greater crime if you get into an accident with a police officer, unless you committed a crime to cause that accident. Ran a red light, ignored their flashy lights, etc...

Partially it's that society has decided that we want law enforcement to be protected, so a crime against them is considered worse.

Partially that cops and prosecutors (the people who decide who gets charged and with what crime) are on the same side.

There are numerous cases of crimes incurring an extra penalty if they affect a certain group, to show that targeting those groups is seen as especially heinous, and/or to more strongly disincentivize crimes targeting them. For example:

• Many states have laws saying that killing a pregnant woman is charged as double homicide.

• The entire purpose of hate crime legislation is to tack on extra charges against someone who commits crimes for racist/religious/sexist/etc. reasons.

• Within police departments, K9 units are often ranked as technically higher than their handlers, so abusing one nets a charge of attacking a superior officer.

the people generally wont treat them any different.

its other cops that take personal offense to it since its " protecing your own", whihc is fine...except when it become a factor in punishment(those stories of a "copkiller" having " accidents" in prison.)

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I think the answer to this might be hard to understand if you live in a wealthy, western country with relatively low levels of crime but it’s very detrimental for society if law enforcement (which includes police, judges, prosecutors, etc) starts getting targeted by criminal organizations. If judges or police let their fears dictate their ability to enforce the law, it becomes easier for criminals to evade the law.

Their lives aren’t worth more, but it’s not about them specifically, it’s about the institution they work for. Imagine if federal judges or US attorneys were getting whacked off for imprisoning mafia associates. Would you want those judges to start giving lenient sentences because they’re scared? Would you want police to let crime occur because they’re scared of ending up like cops in 1990s Medellin?

By creating such stiff penalties, the hope is to discourage criminals from targeting law enforcement so that they can do their jobs. And, mostly, it’s worked. Even relatively powerful gangs or organized crime groups won’t usually touch a beat cop, much less a judge or district attorney, because they know the crackdown will be so swift afterwards.

Literally everything about modern policing is based on the idea that the life of a police officer is more valuable than that of a non-police officer. Including how much risk they should need to take in "fighting crime".

A lot of people live in a separate world where the police are batman and they're actually stopping crime.

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It's the way of the prosecutor and the media are telling you "challenging the authority" by doing the exact same action (killing someone) comes with additional negative connotations.

While yes, one life shouldn’t be more valuable than other, looking at the bigger picture a cop/firefighter/EMT are more IMPORTANT to everyone than the average person, as they go through training for several hours to be at the service of everyone for “free” doesn’t matter the time of day. The unexpected loss of any of them mean that there are fewer people to help the community, along side the whole training cost for a replacement.