I think it is possible that the Tempe police chief and mayor anticipated the incident could be a problem for them, especially given the secret agreement that later came out, and chose to try to spin the story on their own account. It is not hard to imagine that, in that frame of mind, they might be receptive to someone from Uber saying "clearly this was unavoidable", but I have no way of knowing whether any such conversation took place.
Then there is the question of whether the Uber-supplied video accurately represents the lighting conditions at the time... This may seem unduly conspiratorial, but I gave both Uber and the Tempe administration the benefit of the doubt until it became clear that the initial reports were innaccurate and less complete than they could have been.
