This is a pretty accurate description of the optics.
He appeared to be a scared young man who didn't understand why he was being held at gunpoint, which is liable to make a person scatter-brained. However, whether he thought he had good reason to, or not, he did resist both passively at first, and actively when they tried to cuff him. For that alone, they could have charged him if they wanted to.
He had his hands out of the window in a way that both of them were out and he thought it was self-evident to the cops that he was not a threat.
From the bodycam perspective though, you could not see both hands clearly, hence their thinking he isn't complying while he's thinking he is. That appears to me to have been one of the crucial factors in the continued escalation.
I have no insight into how normal a thing the options conversation is, so those with more experience please chime in and inform me...
The way the ranking cop at the end gave the him the two options really made my antennas perk up:
1. we can not charge if you don't make an issue of it, or
2. we can charge you and you can make an issue of it.
Something seemed off about it. The soldier does not understand what is being communicated either, at first. He says that it's not much of a choice, no one is going to willingly encourage the authorities to charge them with a crime.
It seemed like a quid-pro-quo was being proposed, under duress of being detained and cuffed at that. It didn't come across as proper. Am I wrong, or blissfully unaware of something?
Whether they choose to charge him or not is in their discretion. Neither course of action AFAIK impacts his ability to file a formal complaint (or sue, as is actually happening) over how he was treated.