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Posted on 06/09/2011 10:11:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
SWAT == Barney Fife’s w/ multiple bullets in the gun rather than one in the pocket.
Mend (reform) them? You need first to make a credible argument for their existence. In my view that would be very very difficult to do.
End them.
No more often than those situations occur they could more economically be handled by a small number of national guard units.
So ad this to MP training and go through the state Governor's office for hostage situations.
What’s wrong with training regular police officers how to negotiate terrorist/hostage situations? Seems to me like many state and municipal governments are wasting money by hiring and training these officers; very few cities have a high enough crime rate to justify a SWAT team and their cool new toys.
Is it just me or do the SWAT teams seem to be acting more and more like the Gestapo? Abuse of power is always a possibility in any LEO but when you grant officers shiny new weapons, complete anonymity, and total immunity from the consequences of their actions, abuse is more likely to occur.
Where is the case for them? I get sick of the generic in case of (fill-in-the-current-boogey-man)...
The job of the police is to protect citizens; the job of the military is to kill enemies. They are not just incompatible; they are irreconcilable.
Nice reference to the SF operator, but the majority of SWAT teams are composed of wanna be's, most of whom would not make it through basic training, much less into SF. Too many innocents have already died at their hands.
There is absolutely no reason for a no-knock warrant. If perps are able to flush drugs down the toilet before the cops get in, then it wasn't going to be much of a bust anyway! As for hostage situations, they generally play crowd control. How many times has a sniper actually been utilized? Even then, that is two individuals who could be trained with a fraction of the resources.
And let's not forget the most important part: SOF teams cannot exist without proper C2. Tactics are great, but only strategy wins wars. The lack of oversight, intelligence, and control is what leads to these incidents. If a SF team went rogue, I guarantee that heads would roll at HQ. There is no equivalent authority or accountability in LEOs.
The only even semi-legitimate purpose of a swat team is a hostage situation. Problem with that, though is 1. Those types of situations are extraordinarily rare. 2. They rarely achieve their objective. For many years, the FBI’s HRT had a perfect record in hostage situations: everyone they were attempting to ‘save’ died, many at the hands of the HRT itself.
I never will. That's when my American flag went into the attic forever. Sad to say, the American sheeple LOVED that jack-booted thug. They loved Waco. They love torture and perpetual war (now that those "volunteers" fight it for them). We salute the thugs molesting our kids at the airport. The Republicans believe in The Bill of Right (2nd Amendment) and the Dems are worse.
It's over.
>Most SWAT teams should be disbanded. They create more problems than they solve. Maybe a State level SWAT team would work. Major cities might need one if crime is out of control. Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami?
I disagree, if crime is *that* far out of control it is not an issue for the SWAT, or even the police, but the militia.
“22 out of 71 rounds fired hit Guerena”
I thought he was shot 60 times.
There’s been a lot of incorrect information put out by the sheriff. I think 22 is the right number.
Of course SWAT teams should not be fully abolished. They are quite necessary in hostage situations and some Columbine like situations. But they should be abolished for 99% of what they are used for now.
yup, after seeing that I conclude they are broken beyond
mending.
There is a little borough outside of Pittsburgh that started a SWAT team. They got federal grant money to buy all the toys, including a armored car.
The county has a SWAT team already. Trained and experianced. The county SWAT team gets called out for hostage and raids on drug labs.
The borough SWAT team got called out once in three years. Then the borough ran out of cash and ordered it disbanded. The Armored truck is sitting in the parking lot. The fancy body armor is in a closet and the sniper rifles and auto weapons sit in a gun locker.
What a friggen waste.
I think dynamic entries should be used on hostage situations ONLY.
They are so overused these days.
By making it a state unit, the local police wanting a SWAT raid would not only need a warrant, but also have their warrant and reasons be convincing to the SWAT commander who is not under their chain of command, and who does NOT want to be associated with a major screwup in judgement.
By making SWAT consist of a few units in the state, it would be possible to have SWAT be better trained and equipped, and also faster to deploy, since it would become cost-justifiable to give them helicopter transport.
IIRC Columbine had no active shooters for 4 hours before SWAT would enter the building.
Not as much SWAT as CRAWL
I wish the "real" SWAT teams--those that existed before every two-bit police department decided it needed to have one--would speak out against the proliferation of SWAT-wannabe teams. It is reasonably debatable whether there is a need for "real" SWAT teams; there is no justification, however, for many of the SWAT-wannabe teams. Not only do their tactics recklessly endanger innocent people, but they would also recklessly endanger the lives of the officers involved if their targets were anywhere near as dangerous as they claimed.
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