I’m glad he did this. If you say something that stirs up controversy it’s always better to keep the conversation going than to hide away until the chatter dies down.
I really only had minor quibbles with his last video, and I only have minor quibbles with this one. As you know I’m vastly against the militarization of police and SWAT teams how they currently stand in this country.
That doesn’t mean I’m anti-SWAT. The Mumbai and Nairobi attacks, as well as the North Hollywood Shootout and hostage situations are exactly when we need Special Weapons and Tactics.
The issue comes when every little burg in the nation has their own SWAT team, Automatic Weapons, and APC. These horrible criminal acts are serious, but they are also rare, and having a SWAT team in Small-Town Nowhere is generally not a smart investment. Still SWAT is COOL, so departments aren’t willing to get the team cut from the budget, so they use them when not appropriate to justify the budget line.
Also while we do have lots of military forces stationed in this country, I would NOT like to see the military being deployed to combat criminals. While SWAT and Military may LOOK similar and have similar equipment their training and goals should be different. Military is for killing people and breaking stuff and engaging in acts of war, police, be they beat officers or SWAT members are for protecting the public and upholding and enforcing the law.
Personally I think the best solution is a VERY highly trained SWAT force placed to service a REGION. One team might cover all of Northern New England, while another might cover Conniticuit, New York, and New Jersey. Places big like Texas might have a few for just their state. Have them be real-deal retired military with Law Enforcement training, and have them be training like a military unit. In the event of a serious event, they have a helicopter waiting by their base of operations always ready to go for quick deployment to where the danger is. They can also have the APCs and other military vehicles for deployments where that makes sense. The entire region will chip in what would amount to less than what they pay for their current SWAT teams, and they get a better equipped and better trained force that should be deployed whenever they are needed.
The other part to this plan already exists. Police are already better equipped than they were just 20 years ago. They now have options to wear heavier armor. Most police cruisers have an AR-15 in them displacing the more ubiquitous riot gun.
What do you all think of my idea?
Modern law enforcement is about theft. That’s it.
The regional swat team has too great a response time. It could take an hour depending on location even if the team is based in the same town. A county based with some major city based team deployment could allow for useful response times. Take Atlanta, it can take depending on traffic over an hour for the APD swat team to respond.
Hence the air transport, avoid traffic!
Air transport isn;t as fast as people think. Except for very limited cases, you can’t really keep warmed up birds waiting on standby. Which means that, even if the pilots are right next to the helos, it’s 10-15 minutes start up time alone. Assuming it’s even flight appropriate weather.
Having SWAT teams deploying from major cities (with regional agreements and budget sharing), plus a multi-county one for rural areas near NO cities, might be doable.
But, yeah, Mayberry doesn’t need a SWAT team.
Having worked as a dispatcher for an air medevac service, I can confirm that 10-15 minute start up time. Even if there’s no question about weather and the helicopter is already out of the hangar, the abbreviated preflight inspection, warm-up, and flight prep will take just shy of 10 minutes even if the crew is fast. If they need to take on or offload fuel for weight or distance considerations*, it can take even longer.
* Weather is a factor in this, too, so preplanning is limited. Our helicopter at the time was a Bell 412, which could carry pilot, medic, flight nurse, neonate nurse, anesthesiologist, and the ~ 500lb neonate incubator. On some hot days, they would have to leave the medic and flight nurse behind in order to get off the ground, and on really hot days, we would have to turn down neonate flights, because the incubator was too heavy.
I could see the state police maintaining a SWAT team with a rapid deployment capability, like you mention, for hostage situations or incidents like the VT massacre, but then there would also need to be some form of local rapid response team with appropriate training for the immediate response. The reason Virginia Tech wasn’t even worse than it was is because officers made entry within just a few minutes (and even that entry was delayed because of the building’s design and the killer’s chaining of all the exterior doors). If the local police had simply waited for a SWAT team to assemble (even a local one), the death toll would have at least doubled.
But the problem we’re seeing with the proliferation of SWAT teams is less a training issue (though there is that) and more a problem of excessive and improper use. Weapons and tactics designed for hostage rescue or active shooter scenarios are instead being used for serving what should be routine search warrants, and this overly aggressive approach is getting innocent people killed.
Maybe do this: Only the state gets a SWAT team, that only gets called out for hostage situations, active shooters, or true high-risk searches (having to call the state for SWAT hopefully should keep the locals from overusing them). Local departments can create a Rapid Response Team (RRT).
An RRT would consist of officers trained for the initial response to active shooter and hostage situations, who would have a patrol rifle, a ballistic vest and helmet they can quickly don over their normal uniform, all stowed in the trunk of their car. In an active shooter situation, they would do just what the officers at Virginia Tech did – the first 3 or so would armor up, join together, and make immediate entry, with a goal of stopping the shooter. Follow up arrivals would either make additional entry or secure the perimeter, as appropriate for the situation. None of this requires SWAT, and is very effective. SWAT can be brought in later, if needed, to properly clear the building (which can take hours after the shooting stops). For a hostage situation, they would establish a perimeter and wait for SWAT and negotiators. The level of skill for both purposes should be maintainable with regular range time and biannual (or quarterly) training with drills.
The RRT would not be trained for SWAT-style dynamic entry or high-risk warrant service. I would even consider legally banning such activity from being performed by anyone but the state SWAT teams.
Jake —
The evidence so far indicates that it is best for the initial responders not to even wait for a SECOND officer, much less three or more specially trained ones.
Generally speaking, these events end the instant ANY armed officer enters teh equation, even a patrol officer with just a sidearm.
But I do advocate partrol rifles in every cruiser, provided the officers are actually trained to use them. And I have no problem with heavier armor or helmets in the trunk, either. Shirt sleeves, light vest, and sidearm are for when you DON’T expect trouble. Heavy armor, helmets, and longarms are for if you have even 60 seconds to prepare.
Yep, I really think most of what SWAT teams were CREATED for has been displaced simply by the fact that many of the weapons and tools can be easily tucked in a cruiser.
I have almost no issue with a patrol officer being able to get a Helmet, Class IV vest and AR out of his cruiser trunk when shit gets real, than a bunch of officers in Black Fatigues MP5s arriving in an APC.
True. I was going mainly by what happened here at VT, but then those first officers arrived simultaneously (two in the same car, if I remember right). I would certainly want them trained in what to do if the first officers are alone when they get there. Time is lives, and seconds absolutely do matter.
Also beneficial was that all the police agencies here (university, town, and county) had been training together for similar events for years, even if their focus had been on elementary and high schools rather than the university. All three agencies had and have a good working relationship, and worked together as if they were all one agency.
With the advent of SWAT came so many negative developments it’s hard to know where to start. But I personally believe the final irreversible deathknell of policing as a positive force came with four little words: Officer Safety Is Paramount.
If a police officer’s first duty is to get home at the end of his shift, as we hear so often now, then the original primary objective of any police officer – to serve as a protection for his fellow citizens – is impossible. The only thing that can happen is the thing that has happened – the primary objective is abandoned. The secondary and tertiary objectives – enforce the law, which includes collection of fees and penalties – become paramount. This is inevitable, and it is what we have seen. And as a result, over the past generation we have seen policing attract a different sort. To the extent that he ever really did, Andy Taylor doesn’t work here anymore. Now our protectors are enforcers, and they are the bureaucrat and the thug. This has always been true to some extent, of course. Police departments have always been vulnerable to corruption in the service of corrupt local regimes but now it is the rule.
This is the reality, and everything else is a sympton. Talk of reforming protocols on weapons, organization or tactics is just rearranging deck chairs. You’re not going to reverse the damage by refusing to issue MRAPs or black uniforms. Until policing goes back to its Peelian beginnings, the future is a DMV functionary stomping on a human face forever.