It’s not intimidation because it’s normal for any large crowd. The snipers are not there to arrest anybody. The snipers are not going to assassinate some random college student.

You’re also not going to find “the snipers really saved the day” articles because they’re just going to say “the police” in pretty much any article praising a police response. They also don’t normally shoot their guns and are more to assist the folks on the ground with figuring out where trouble is and how to get to it.

You could do a lot of the same job with a pair of binoculars. I’m sure they don’t because it’s just another expense and then you need to switch from binoculars to a rifle and find the target again if something does go sideways.