Sorry, helmets are here to stay, and you may see them on patrol officers before you see hats on SWAT. I carry one in my vehicle for riot situations and if there is an active shooter because after Columbine, we don’t set up perimeters, we go in and deal with the threat.
Ski masks are worn sometimes because that particular officer is also an undercover one.
I fail to see how protecting an officer’s head infringes on anyone’s freedom. No one has the right to ask officers to take shots or other injuries to the head because their headgear is scary looking. The trend in police work now is for officers to wear external vests so they don’t have all the crap on a duty belt that causes hip and back problems, that we learned from the military on load distribution.
The fatigues, whatever the color are utilitarian in purpose. You have to carry alot of equipment. Those fatigues facilitate that.
Very few agencies do no-knocks at night unless they are going after the baddest of the bad. A no knock is when you are highly certain there will be armed resistance, hence the surprise. Most judges will not sign off on them unless there are unique circumstances.
Everything a SWAT officer is carrying was deemed necessary through years of study and trial, of actual events which precipitated the need for those things. You can’t go back to the truck if you forgot something and you must have redundency. Two is one, one is none.
Should SWAT be used to get people who didn’t pay their education loan? I will be the first to say that’s hell no.
But SWAT officers MUST use some military tactics. In fact SWAT developed many of the tactics our infantry use today in fighting in built up areas.
Back in the day, when they didn’t have those tactics officers died. A lot. We are not going back to the days of Andy Griffith standing in front of the door playing pocket pool and getting his damn fool head shot off. Those days are over.
FWIW, I believe the war on drugs is a waste of time and money. It cannot be won, not like it’s being carried out. Legalize drugs and you will see alot less SWAT teams, alot less citizens and officers killed.
“I carry one in my vehicle for riot situations and if there is an active shooter because after Columbine, we don’t set up perimeters, we go in and deal with the threat.”
If that ever happens you guys would be the first.
You are right. The militarization of community police will continue unabated and they will continue to lose the support of the middle class. I currently support the police and I always have. As they continue to militarize, I don’t know how long it will take before I quit thinking of the police as “us” and instead begin thinking of them as “them”.
The militarization of the police will be good for members of the police in the short term maximizing their personal safety and helping them achieve their goals. In the long term they will become perceived as another enemy of the middle class taxpayers who pay their salaries and can with-hold it as well.
I am very skeptical that all of the SWAT personnel’s equipment keeps him safer than the old days when police did not have helmets and vests.
It is a little known fact that rugby players suffer less head injuries than football players. This is because football players are far less likely to guard their helmeted head than rugby players are to guard their naked head.
I can assure you that police who are shielded with helmets and vests are far more likely to behave in an aggressive and foolhardy manner than ones who are naked to small arms fire or a sharp knife.
I am sure you disagree.
Nothing good in the long term can happen from the militarization of the police. This will create severe political problems for police down the road as they lose support among middle class tax payers.