Why do we tolerate paramilitarism in our policing forces?
In spring 1997, in the town of Dinuba, California, (pop. 15,000), the local police created a SWAT team. In summer 1997, with half of the city’s force on the SWAT unit, the officers shot Ramon Gallardo fifteen times during a 7:00AM raid, one featuring masks and MP5 subguns obtained with the assistance of the federal government. The officers were raiding the house looking for one of Gallardo’s sons, who allegedly, according to a tipster, was in possession of a sawed-off double barreled shotgun used in a murder in another town. The informant later recanted the account. In any event, the “person of interest†wasn’t even home that morning.
What was Ramon Gallardo killed for? Living in Dinuba. A knife was planted on Gallardo to “justify†the shoot. An eventual jury didn’t buy it and a $12.5 million verdict was slapped on the city, twice its annual budget. The case eventually settled for the city’s $9 million insurance policy limit. The SWAT team was disbanded.
As illustrated in a recent mistaken no-knock entry in NYC, in which a woman died of a heart attack initiated on the word of a junkie, Gallardo’s fate is hardly unique. The larger question is why we tolerate these tactics when the police are supposed to be theoretically and tactically distinct from the military, who are traditionally employed against foreigners. Allegedly, the citizens of the United States of America have nominal rights against military style assault tactics, and “run-out†search and seizures such as are performed by four man car teams of Fresno SWAT officers.
A professional police force is supposedly organized as citizens, who are designated by other citizens, to police the public in accord with a social contract. The contract, in short, is a bargain between the officer, who is granted authority that most people cannot wield by law, in exchange for the delegators of that power being treated as proper citizens, i.e., the law will be followed in the course of investigation and arrest of suspected citizens. Arguably, the development of SWAT teams since the late 60s abrogates that contract.
Paramilitarism is a hallmark of Third World police forces and should have no home here. It is eerie that elsewhere paramilitaries are not used to investigate suspected lawbreakers, but to annihilate them. When one examines the outcomes of the most heavy-handed paramilitary tactics of the past 15 years, it rapidly becomes apparent that a course that doesn’t escalate a situation has been dismissed out of hand. It is readily discernable that had the local Sheriff served Randy Weaver a summons for a firearms violation, the tragic stand-off there would have never happened. Had the ATF tapped local authorities to pick up David Koresh on his next visit to Waco rather than launch a secrecy compromised strike on his compound, that incident would never have happened. Had the NYC simply knocked at the door politely or required corroboration of their “trustworthy†source, a grandmother would be alive and Johnny Cochran wouldn’t have visited town to file a multi-million dollar lawsuit.
This post is not to say that SWAT tactics have no place in American policing. What I am saying is that these forces should be much rarer than they are. According to Eastern Kentucky University professors Peter Kraska and Victor Kappeler, nearly 90 percent of police departments surveyed in communities of over 50,000 people had SWAT type forces, but so did 70 percent of all departments in cities smaller than that. Such a figure is preposterous. Let’s visit some of these paramilitary units.
Here is a picture of the Fond-du-Lac Wisconsin SWAT team. Population 42,203
Here is the Baldwin Township Pennsylvania Tactical Squad. Population 2,477
Here is the elite of the Hyattsville Maryland police department. Population 14,733
Here is the SWAT team of Eufaula Alabama. Population 13,908
All of these teams do not predate the 1990s. There can be little doubt that they are a byproduct of the War on Drugs and funded through a mix of asset forfeitures and federal aid. What is common to all SWAT teams is that their missions have largely crept to include all manner of things. Once upon a time, these teams were only carted out to take care of barricaded gunmen or other such obvious situations where higher levels of armor, stealth, or weaponry, had an apparent use. Over time, many of these units have turned to going on drug raids, serving search warrants, and yes, even doing investigations and crowd control. Does anyone remember the SWAT dragnets on Maryland’s and Virginia’s highways during the Washington sniper spree? I do.
The danger to the proliferation of these teams and their growing use for mundane policing duties is mostly one of perception. The higher profile of these units in the press and in shows like COPS serve to create a more imposing barrier of relationship between these types of units and the communities in which they serve. No part of town, no matter how seedy, should be referred to as a “war zone,†or “enemy territory,†or other such deprecatory remarks. How “politically correct!†one might say. However, and it cannot be denied, the language used to demarcate the line between “us†and the “other†serves to craft the perception of the “other.†It is not a far step from viewing everyone in an area as a potential threat to treating everyone in a given area as a threat.
It is my opinion that reactionary policing units should be disbanded in most places and turned into the mission portfolio of a small state police unit or a regional intergovernmental force who is not merely beholden to a local commander who uses the teams weapons and tactics as he sees fit.
Why should these teams be reined in? It is simply human nature that people want to use what they have. Nobody here would buy a common deer rifle without any intent to ever fire it at a deer or at least a piece of metal or cardboard. By the same token, the creation of a SWAT unit, especially in smaller locales where there can scarce said to be ample opportunities for bank robberies or hostage crises, the temptation to use such a team inappropriately or ill-advisedly, as in Dinuba, must be present. Tactical policing units, who should be made up of elite personnel who are highly trained and kept honed by constant practice, are simply not an option in tiny communities with limited budgets. All such ad hoc tactical units should be ended and the sole model of policing returned to one where the law enforcement officer is a part of the community and not a masked force striking in the middle of the night just because they received some cool toys from the Feds.
Those departments might lose their artificial "coolness quotient" but they might be more respected by the communities they are supposed to be serving--not practicing to assault.
[edited for spelling & punctuation]
In spring 1997, in the town of Dinuba, California, (pop. 15,000), the local police created a SWAT team. In summer 1997, with half of the city’s force on the SWAT unit, the officers shot Ramon Gallardo fifteen times during a 7:00AM raid, one featuring masks and MP5 subguns obtained with the assistance of the federal government. The officers were raiding the house looking for one of Gallardo’s sons, who allegedly, according to a tipster, was in possession of a sawed-off double barreled shotgun used in a murder in another town. The informant later recanted the account. In any event, the “person of interest†wasn’t even home that morning.
What was Ramon Gallardo killed for? Living in Dinuba. A knife was planted on Gallardo to “justify†the shoot. An eventual jury didn’t buy it and a $12.5 million verdict was slapped on the city, twice its annual budget. The case eventually settled for the city’s $9 million insurance policy limit. The SWAT team was disbanded.
As illustrated in a recent mistaken no-knock entry in NYC, in which a woman died of a heart attack initiated on the word of a junkie, Gallardo’s fate is hardly unique. The larger question is why we tolerate these tactics when the police are supposed to be theoretically and tactically distinct from the military, who are traditionally employed against foreigners. Allegedly, the citizens of the United States of America have nominal rights against military style assault tactics, and “run-out†search and seizures such as are performed by four man car teams of Fresno SWAT officers.
A professional police force is supposedly organized as citizens, who are designated by other citizens, to police the public in accord with a social contract. The contract, in short, is a bargain between the officer, who is granted authority that most people cannot wield by law, in exchange for the delegators of that power being treated as proper citizens, i.e., the law will be followed in the course of investigation and arrest of suspected citizens. Arguably, the development of SWAT teams since the late 60s abrogates that contract.
Paramilitarism is a hallmark of Third World police forces and should have no home here. It is eerie that elsewhere paramilitaries are not used to investigate suspected lawbreakers, but to annihilate them. When one examines the outcomes of the most heavy-handed paramilitary tactics of the past 15 years, it rapidly becomes apparent that a course that doesn’t escalate a situation has been dismissed out of hand. It is readily discernable that had the local Sheriff served Randy Weaver a summons for a firearms violation, the tragic stand-off there would have never happened. Had the ATF tapped local authorities to pick up David Koresh on his next visit to Waco rather than launch a secrecy compromised strike on his compound, that incident would never have happened. Had the NYC simply knocked at the door politely or required corroboration of their “trustworthy†source, a grandmother would be alive and Johnny Cochran wouldn’t have visited town to file a multi-million dollar lawsuit.
This post is not to say that SWAT tactics have no place in American policing. What I am saying is that these forces should be much rarer than they are. According to Eastern Kentucky University professors Peter Kraska and Victor Kappeler, nearly 90 percent of police departments surveyed in communities of over 50,000 people had SWAT type forces, but so did 70 percent of all departments in cities smaller than that. Such a figure is preposterous. Let’s visit some of these paramilitary units.
Here is a picture of the Fond-du-Lac Wisconsin SWAT team. Population 42,203
Here is the Baldwin Township Pennsylvania Tactical Squad. Population 2,477
Here is the elite of the Hyattsville Maryland police department. Population 14,733
Here is the SWAT team of Eufaula Alabama. Population 13,908
All of these teams do not predate the 1990s. There can be little doubt that they are a byproduct of the War on Drugs and funded through a mix of asset forfeitures and federal aid. What is common to all SWAT teams is that their missions have largely crept to include all manner of things. Once upon a time, these teams were only carted out to take care of barricaded gunmen or other such obvious situations where higher levels of armor, stealth, or weaponry, had an apparent use. Over time, many of these units have turned to going on drug raids, serving search warrants, and yes, even doing investigations and crowd control. Does anyone remember the SWAT dragnets on Maryland’s and Virginia’s highways during the Washington sniper spree? I do.
The danger to the proliferation of these teams and their growing use for mundane policing duties is mostly one of perception. The higher profile of these units in the press and in shows like COPS serve to create a more imposing barrier of relationship between these types of units and the communities in which they serve. No part of town, no matter how seedy, should be referred to as a “war zone,†or “enemy territory,†or other such deprecatory remarks. How “politically correct!†one might say. However, and it cannot be denied, the language used to demarcate the line between “us†and the “other†serves to craft the perception of the “other.†It is not a far step from viewing everyone in an area as a potential threat to treating everyone in a given area as a threat.
It is my opinion that reactionary policing units should be disbanded in most places and turned into the mission portfolio of a small state police unit or a regional intergovernmental force who is not merely beholden to a local commander who uses the teams weapons and tactics as he sees fit.
Why should these teams be reined in? It is simply human nature that people want to use what they have. Nobody here would buy a common deer rifle without any intent to ever fire it at a deer or at least a piece of metal or cardboard. By the same token, the creation of a SWAT unit, especially in smaller locales where there can scarce said to be ample opportunities for bank robberies or hostage crises, the temptation to use such a team inappropriately or ill-advisedly, as in Dinuba, must be present. Tactical policing units, who should be made up of elite personnel who are highly trained and kept honed by constant practice, are simply not an option in tiny communities with limited budgets. All such ad hoc tactical units should be ended and the sole model of policing returned to one where the law enforcement officer is a part of the community and not a masked force striking in the middle of the night just because they received some cool toys from the Feds.
Those departments might lose their artificial "coolness quotient" but they might be more respected by the communities they are supposed to be serving--not practicing to assault.
[edited for spelling & punctuation]
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