Why do we tolerate paramiltarism in our policing forces?

[Preacherman]

Let me give a "Yes, but..." response to this.

Firstly, I agree that the militarization of civilian police forces is a very troubling issue indeed. I'm LE myself (Federal), and have seen how LEO's of many Federal agencies refer to ordinary folks as "civilians". When I (always!) point out that we're civilians as well, and that the only ones who are not civilians are wearing a military uniform, I get lots of opposition. It worries me because LEO's are civilians protecting civilians. If the mind-set that "we're different" becomes too established, I think this can have very negative consequences - not least of all for Constitutional principles like the Second Amendment, which can be seen as a threat to "us" in the hands of "them", if you know what I mean. I suspect this is why so many top cops oppose things like concealed carry - they're more politicians than they are policemen, but they've absorbed the "us vs. them", "LE versus civilian" mentality over the years, and it's carrying over into their interaction with the political establishment. NOT healthy, IMHO...

Secondly, I have to say that I fully support the concept of having a backup squad of highly-trained, well-equipped cops available to handle the out-of-the-ordinary cases. The average LEO is equipped and trained to handle the average crime - breaking and entering, domestic violence, that sort of thing. He/she is NOT equipped or trained to handle a gang of heavily-armed bank robbers or drug dealers, or a homicidal maniac in a tower armed with a long-range weapon. It would be financially and practically impossible to train and equip all LEO's to handle these sorts of situations. This is where any LEO worth his/her pay will recognize that something really bad is going down and call for backup, then pull back and observe if at all possible, keeping the reinforcements informed of developments so that they arrive with as much information as possible. This is not always an option, and that's when the LEO learns the hard way that a badge can get you killed...

Thirdly, we come to the "break-and-enter" service of warrants, which has resulted in the death and/or injury of innocent victims in the past. This is absolutely, totally and completely unacceptable: but it's a direct consequence of the militarization of police units. The US Army, in taking over a town, might end up killing some civilians in addition to its armed defenders. They would be genuinely sorry about this, I'm sure, but would say that it's inevitable, it's "collateral damage", and it's an unavoidable part of warfare. Unfortunately, too many of our police take the same attitude to work. They're involved in a "war" (on drugs, on crime, etc.): they have to get their job done: this involves taking on heavily-armed and desperate criminals, who won't hesitate to kill LEO's: and a few innocent victims or casualties in this struggle are simply "collateral damage", that can't be helped, and is part of the price they ("we") have to pay to obtain victory in this "war".

I don't know the answer to this, except to ban "break-and-enter" service of warrants altogether. Instead of this practice, perhaps we could institute a system of isolating a location (removing the neighbors, etc.) and starving out the folks inside? This may not always be possible, and might result in the destruction of evidence that might subsequently prevent any conviction being obtained: but I don't see any alternative. Of course, if one is after a suspected terrorist armed with a suspected weapon of mass destruction, who might use that weapon if given time to do so... well, under those circumstances, a forced entry and immediate neutralizing of everyone and anyone inside may be the only option. I don't have an answer for such situations.

There's more to this than meets the eye. Scale back the militarization of LE functions, most certainly: but still, there are real and very dangerous threats out there, and we need some form of SWAT to handle them.

Anyone got any better answers?

 

[Edward429451]

Everyone here has either developed or read someone elses plan for if SHTF.

Would that be Swat Hits The Fan?

The problem many have is the tactics being used and the increasing frequency these tactics are implemented without a clear need. No-knock warrants should not be the prefered method of arrest. Staging raids like Waco to justify your budget should not occur.

Yes, agreed. If this kind of stuff continues to happen, how could any good citizen be thought wrong of for seeing more of a threat from the police/swat than robbers. The po po operate under color of law and so the frequency of their actions (and mistakes) continue to rise faster than the crime rate. (seems so anyway, not quoteing numbers or anything.) At this rate it isnt unreasonable to fear the po po more than the infrequent criminals. Sad but true.

 

[Mr. James]

Boats,

Outstanding. I had assumed this was a published piece. It's definitely a keeper.

Hi, Mr. White,

No quarrel with your comment on the local PDs. You bet we call them first, and can't wait to see them arrive. They are, by and large, good men trying to do an impossibly difficult job.

But you steer wide of Boats' main point. I don't believe Boats was arguing SWAT units were evil in se. His quarrel was in the increasing, and undeniable, increase in the military armaments, military-style training, and deploying of SWAT units, often in situations and in locations where they are not really needed. You know, when your only [read: best, newest, federally funded] tool is a hammer, the world is a nail.

Do you really think that if ESU expected to find a middle aged woman with a heart condition behind the door, they would have handled it the way they did?

That is, I believe, part of Boats' complaint. WHY DIDN'T THEY KNOW? HOW DARE THEY USE THESE TACTICS IF THEY DON'T KNOW? If it's that dicey, pull back, establish a perimiter and THEN call in the 8th Marines.

Is the risk of having some cocaine flushed down a toilet really worth what we're paying?

"Ooops, our bad" is, truly, an unsatisfactory response to this sort of thing. But, until the civil judgement comes in, that's all we ever get.

Respectfully submitted.

 

[Orthonym]

Sovereign immunity is the yummiest of all drugs, except maybe power.

 

[Boats]

Mr. White---

Allow me to quote myself:

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.

"or a regional intergovernmental force."

Allow me to introduce a team I half approve of.

Marion County, Oregon, Special Response Team

I do not approve of their standard fashion sense. I do approve of their organization. The county I reside in has well in excess of 200,000 residents. It has at least three police agencies, a Sheriff's department, and a State Police unit, all of adequate size, if some of the SWAT teams in my opening post are any indicator, capable of fielding independent SWAT teams.

The Marion County SRT is multiagency, it is multidisciplined, as it includes paramedics. It has defined missions of barricade, hostage, high risk arrest, and VIP details--AND NOTHING ELSE. Combating drugs, investigating drugs, doing search warrants, all of that, falls to a different interagency team that has no tactical team at its beck and call.

Guess what? Our SRT unit only gets called for the actual emergencies it was intended to address, ones where the situation is defined, ones where the suspect is known, one where the informant has been independently checked. It works and it is not driven by ego or headlines. My only valid criticism of them is the camo, which I have been writing the powers that be to disallow. As they are interagency, I concede that they need some unit identifier, but I cannot see why that cannot be addressed through SRT on their armored duds.

My local SRT, except for their over the top taste in clothing, more closely mirrors what I, and many others, believe is an appropriate level of paramilitarization for our police forces. Small and not unnecessarily duplicative, limited in mission profile, not endlessly acquisitive of armored vehicles and other claptrap, and commanded by only the top LEO with county-wide jurisdiction, who consults with the local police commander. They are deployable most anywhere in the county inside of 45 minutes.

 

[Jeff White]

Mr. James,
Please call me Jeff, Mr. White was my dad .

His quarrel was in the increasing, and undeniable, increase in the military armaments, military-style training, and deploying of SWAT units, often in situations and in locations where they are not really needed. You know, when your only [read: best, newest, federally funded] tool is a hammer, the world is a nail.

Could you please provide me with spme examples of this? Besides the obvious abuses at Waco and Ruby Ridge. For the most part in the rural areas SWAT type units aren't deployed as much as they should be because of the costs involved in overtime and stripping of manpower from other duties.

Do you really think that if ESU expected to find a middle aged woman with a heart condition behind the door, they would have handled it the way they did?

That is, I believe, part of Boats' complaint. WHY DIDN'T THEY KNOW? HOW DARE THEY USE THESE TACTICS IF THEY DON'T KNOW? If it's that dicey, pull back, establish a perimiter and THEN call in the 8th Marines.

Unless the bureaucrats running NYPD have changed their minds, the ESU is now prohibited from using distraction devices. So now the officers who still have to take down barricaded suspects have lost the use of an important tool that not only keeps them safe, but the suspects. Why, because the press, just like Boats and yourself, are focusing on the wrong thing. It wasn't ESU that made the mistake. They acted within department guidlines based on the information they were given. They were told there was a suspect who was amred and dangerous and would fight in that apartment. The fault lies with the nacotics unit who worked the CI (confidential informant) and didnt verify the address. I don't know what their policy is, but I know that around here, you don't get search warrants that easily. ESU was the bullet that killed that woman, but the war on some drugs was the gun, and the narcotics unit pulled the trigger. Now ESU is taking the blame. And the people of New York, both good and bad are less safe then they were a few weeks ago.

I hear a lot of condemnation of ESU, but none for the narcotics unit that ran the CI, got the warrant and then turned it over to ESU to serve. Why?

Is the risk of having some cocaine flushed down a toilet really worth what we're paying?

Nope, the war on some drugs and the war on some guns and the war on whatever else the politicians decide to make the cause of the week is the problem. Check my posts on TFL for a couple long threads I started on ending the war on some drugs back in about 1998 for my opinions on this.

I'm going to go against popular thought here and maintain that SWAT type units make everyone, peace officer, private citizen and criminal safer. Think of how many criminals and emotionally disturbed persons who would be dead now if police departments didn't have trained and disciplined SWAT units to handle these situations without having to fire shots.

"Ooops, our bad" is, truly, an unsatisfactory response to this sort of thing. But, until the civil judgement comes in, that's all we ever get.

Agreed. But that isn't all you get. By the time this shakes out, hopefully, the nacotics unit will have some better procedures for evaluating information from CIs, and perhaps even judges will look at the information on the warrant applications more carefully. ESU didn't do this on it's own. The checks and balances that are built into the system failed. It's not SWAT it's the war on some drugs.

Jeff

 

[jato]

The average LEO is equipped and trained to handle the average crime - breaking and entering, domestic violence, that sort of thing. He/she is NOT equipped or trained to handle a gang of heavily-armed bank robbers or drug dealers, or a homicidal maniac in a tower armed with a long-range weapon.

Hey Preacherman, the problem is (at least in Southern Ca.) the patrol officers do have to deal with the heavy stuff. SWAT takes over an hour or more to respond, assemble, brief and execute.

Patrol is the front line. In my opinion, patrol should get the best weapons / training. Of course, it is usually quite the opposite.

 

[Boats]

Here you go Jeff, some WOD/SWAT abuses:

The Leftists are sometimes useful to me

I would have you note that "no knocks" were a distasteful exception that have become the rule. Who do you think has been pressuring for that change over the past 40 years?

 

[Jeff White]

Boats,
Your SRT could easily have the same thing happen to it, as happened to NYPD ESU in the example you cited in your original post.

Multi jurisdictional agencies are very common. There is nothing wrong with them. I am happy that all the agencies involved have such a good working relationship and they have worked out all the command and liability issues. This isn't possible everywhere.

Where is there a SWAT team that operates at the beck and call of a local official that is running roughshod over the population? I challenge you to provide some documentation.

Also I would bet that if your narcotics unit isn't supported by SRT, they have officers with similar training who execute the high risk search warrants. So you probably have a SWAT unit that is just less visible.

How would placing all SWAT type units under a higher authority then local control end the abuses? It seems to me, the most deadly and flagrant abuses of power come from the agencies under control of the highest authority, the federal government. In my experience, the more central contol you have of a function, the less responsive it is. Think about this; Your neighbor Joe, down the street, has been growing a little dope in his basement. Joe is a pretty good guy, smokes a little weed now and then, sells some to his old high school buddies, but he's always there to loan you his mower, or help you paint your fence. Who do you want deciding what tactics to use to arrest him? A police administrator in the state capitol or Washington DC, or the guys at the local police station, who know Joe and know that he's pretty harmless?

Jeff

 

[Intune]

I see Jeff’s point and agree with it for the most part. My contention is that the WOD provides both the funds and the opportunity to utilize paramilitary forces. Every podunk town has them thru seizures & forfeitures. If the LEO’s only had to go after murderers, rapists and crazies they would be BORED! I’m gonna do a little study for you guys. I’m going to find out:

A. How much money comes from the local gov of my town to fund the police force.

B. How much comes from federal funding.

C. How much comes from the WOD.

D. Any guesses?

Erosion, erosion, erosion of our rights as free citizens of this republic.

One word about Jeff's previous post. WACO

 

[Jeff White]

I would have you note that "no knocks" were a distasteful exception that have become the rule. Who do you think has been pressuring for that change over the past 40 years?

In 18 years, I have never seen a no knock warrant. They are very hard to get, at least around here. So hard that most agencies don't even bother applying for them.

As for your examples:
They are all little snippets of the story. There are usually as many versions of the story as there are participants.

Esequiel Hernandez, a teenage goat herder, was murdered by U.S. Marines in 1997 near his home in Texas because they falsely thought that he might be a drug courier.

From what I read at the time, the boy fired in the direction of the Marines. It is debatable what he was shooting at, but he was not gunned down because the Marines thought he was a drug courier. The facts were he did possess a weapon and fire it in the direction of the hide the Marines were in.

SWAT Team Kills 11-Year-Old Boy in a drug raid (Sep. 13, 2000)
In Modesto, Calif., Alberto Sepulveda, an 11 year-old seventh-grader, was fatally shot in the back by a shotgun blast from David Hawn, a 21 year veteran cop. The boy's father, was arrested on drug trafficking charges, which were later dropped because of lack of evidence. The boy's mother and two siblings, ages 8 and 14, were also home during the raid.

Where is the rest of the story? What were the circumstances ? Was it a negligent discharge, a case of mistaken identity? Why were the charges dropped for lack of evidence? Was the evidence there and suppressed?

Many of the other examples are from editorials, not news articles. I agree that mistakes have been made. I never said the system was perfect. But we have to get the rest of the story on all these incidents. And you neglect to point out what action (if any)was taken after these incidents.

As I said in earlier posts, it's not SWAT or tactically trained officers that is the problem, it's things like the war on some drugs.

Jeff

 

[Sergeant Bob]

How would placing all SWAT type units under a higher authority then local control end the abuses?

Your neighbor Joe, down the street, has been growing a little dope in his basement.

Who do you want deciding what tactics to use to arrest him? A police administrator in the state capitol or Washington DC, or the guys at the local police station, who know Joe and know that he's pretty harmless?

Why would you even think about calling for a SWAT team for this? I hope I'm just misunderstanding your point or there's really nothing more to talk about. It should not go any farther than the local PD or Sheriff patrol officers (though I'm of the opinion it shouldn't even go there).

I think you may be missing Boats' point here:

The Marion County SRT is multiagency, it is multidisciplined, as it includes paramedics. It has defined missions of barricade, hostage, high risk arrest, and VIP details--AND NOTHING ELSE.

It's a county agency, with members from different agencies within the county. Janet Reno would not be running the show.

 

[Jeff White]

Why would you even think about calling for a SWAT team for this? I hope I'm just misunderstanding your point or there's really nothing more to talk about. It should not go any farther than the local PD or Sheriff patrol officers (though I'm of the opinion it shouldn't even go there).

No, I would probably walk up to the door in uniform early in the morning, knock and present them with the warrant. My point was, the higher you centralize decision making like this, the more likely it would be a knock and announce at 0330 with black clad officers with Surefire lights mounted on their weapons. Bureaucrats always err on the side of caution.

It's a county agency, with members from different agencies within the county. Janet Reno would not be running the show.

I am aware of that. The county directly to the South of me does the same thing. The point I'm making is that centralized control isn't always the answer. I'm glad that it works in Marion County Oregon. It doesn't work everywhere. They have been unable to make it work here, despite the best efforts of a lot of good people.

You guys are attacking the symptoms. You need to treat the underlying disease which is the war on some drugs, the war on some guns, the war on terror and who knows what's next.

Work through the sytem to change the laws. Legalize or decriminalize drugs. Do away with gun laws.....Then you'll see this stuff come to a halt.

Jeff

 

[Tamara]

Jeff White,

In 18 years, I have never seen a no knock warrant. They are very hard to get, at least around here. So hard that most agencies don't even bother applying for them.

Unfortunately, they're easier to get elsewhere. In an investigative report on the Denver PD, it was revealed that they carried out 146 no-knock drug raids in 1999. Out of all those raids, only two suspects were actually sent to prison, and in two-thirds of the raids, no felony arrests were even made. Culminating what we hope was an unusually bad year vis a vis the norm, was the disastrous Ismael Mena incident.

I think that the problem is frequently that A) SWAT is the big trendy thing. B) SWAT teams are expensive. C) Drug seizures pay money. D) "I know, we can make the SWAT team pay for itself!". This seems to cause a self-reinforcing feedback loop. Pretty soon, an idea hatched in urban megalopolises to deal with barricaded shooters and hostage situations has trickled down to the point where Andy and Barn are doing a break'n'rake on Aunt Bea's parlor window and lobbing in flash-bangs 'cause Otis told 'em he saw Opie in there smoking a joint, and, well, auctioning off Aunt Bea's house would pay for that new computer system down at the jail that the mayor won't pony up for...

Granted, I'm being a little hyperbolic, but to deny something's a little out of whack would be wrong. There's gotta be a happy medium someplace.

 

[Sergeant Bob]

You guys are attacking the symptoms. You need to treat the underlying disease which is the war on some drugs, the war on some guns, the war on terror and who knows what's next.

I agree with the basic premise of your arguement but, I equate it to using chemotherapy to treat the common cold. It would be much easier to switch to sudaphed than to beat the cold. That will take a bit more work.

 

[BigG]

MrAcheson: It's the Halloween/Mr. Dress Up aspect of this I object to most strenuously.

 

[spartacus2002]

Now keeping this in mind, think about what you are implying. The mere possession of BDUs, level IV body armor, evil black rifles is turning Barn and Andy into the Waffen SS. I suppose possession of evil black rifles, semiautomatic pistols, knifes, axes and assorted other weapons turns ordinary citizens into serial killers.

There is a difference between the police and the citizens. That difference is that the police have a legal monopoly on the use of force, including deadly force, against the citizens (except of course limited cases where a citizen can self-defend).

The police can use deadly force to uphold the law, even laws of dubious constitutionality. You and I cannot.

So, you combine power+ability+will+mission = opportunity and capability to abuse that power.

There is one other elephant in the room that everyone is dancing around, and I will go on record even if it gets me flamed. I am a soldier. My job is to apply violence when I am called upon to perform my duty. Other than law of war issues regarding noncombatants and captured enemy, I am not trained to protect rights or prevent violence, nor is it my mission. Application of deadly force is my first instinct and only option. Therefore, I am used only in very infrequent occasions and only for good reason.

A policeman has the opposite mission. They are used constantly, and they exist to protect rights and prevent violence. Violence and deadly force are their last resort, not the first.

Now, here is the kicker: some, NOT ALL, police wish they had the soldier's freedom of action. I've met enough police who thought they were Rambo Junior to scare me. You non-Rambo LEOs know who I'm talking about. Many of those Rambo Jrs never had the balls to join the military, and secretly regret it. Being a cop gives them power and a gun, and they like it.

I've also met honest cops who put their community first. I sincerely believe the Rambo Juniors are by far the minority. HOWEVER, SWAT teams can give those Rambo Juniors an excuse to play soldier, an excuse to breed an us v. them mentality, and a mindset that application of deadly force is their primary option, not a last resort.

If you're gonna have a SWAT team, you gotta make sure those guys get lots of dad-to-son talks from their boss that they are still cops, not soldiers.

PS if you don't believe any of the above, look at the posts where LEOs admit their fellow LEOs refer to their fellow citizens as "civilians."

 

[Oracle]

Boats,

Very nice article. I agree with what you've said, there is an appropriate use for special weapons and tactics, but it isn't in every podunk county or city in the world. Were you going to publish this article, I would suggest adding the part about the SRT team that you think is proper, sort of a "point, counterpoint" arguement. Very nice, regardless.

 

[Boats]

Now keeping this in mind, think about what you are implying. The mere possession of BDUs, level IV body armor, evil black rifles is turning Barn and Andy into the Waffen SS. I suppose possession of evil black rifles, semiautomatic pistols, knifes, axes and assorted other weapons turns ordinary citizens into serial killers.

I don't think weapons or equipment gnaw on a man until he has to use it on someone, anyone. That was not the point I was trying to make.

However, no matter how many cool guns I buy or equipment I purchase, I never have to justify their ownership, my practice budget, their mission, utility, or whatever, except to my wife. She is way more indulgent than a city council or a board of commissioners and the like, who demand results when expenditures are made.

I rarely face the temptation to go out and use my guns simply to avoid having my ammo budget slashed by my wife or justify my continued retention of my cooler weapons to myself.

There are different pressures on a team or a SWAT commander who gets hooked on asset forfeiture, writing grant requests to Washington DC or annually competing for a share of a limited budget with other LEO or publicly funded priorities.

I do not think it is any accident that most of the SWAT teams in America statistically were formed in the 1990s. It seemed that departments in many smaller burgs figured out how they could imitate the big boys. All it takes is to convince one's supervisors of the "increased threat" posed by drug dealers and the other scourges of society and demand help in mounting a response.

"But there is good news Mayor, with your backing, I can get just about everything we need from the US Department of Justice. They'll give most of the stuff to us, we just have to feed and maintain it after we demonstrate a need for the equipment. As you know, we are all outgunned, which is why we transitioned from revolvers to Glock semi-autos fifteen years ago. Yes, I know there hasn't been an officer involved shooting here in 35 years or so, but we have to be ready for when some meth-amped bikers roll through town someday and decide to blast our fair city like some latter day version of Rebel Without a Cause."

The proverbial white elephant anyone?

 

[toro]

Great Post


I have been reading Ruby Ridge written by Rany Weaver and his daughter Sara. Here is a quote:

A "snitch" is usually someone, who has committed a crime, but when apprehended is given a chance to avoid arrest or prosecution by agreeing to become an informent. Whether a first time offender, or someone with an extensive criminal history, these people are essentially put on the payroll (your tax dollars at work). They work as undercover informants, in theory, providing the controlling agency with information on crimes and criminals.


The problem, in most cases, is the informant's prime motivations: money and staying out of jail. Informants are pressured to produce, to provide infromation that will lead to arrest and ultimately enhance the agency's image. Many times, the information is invalid or an outright lie. The potential for abuse is great. In the past few years an alarming number of innocent people have been killed or imprisoned by overly zealous law enforcement officers acting on bad tips provided by snitches
-- Randy Weaver --

Mrs. Toro


----------------------------------------------
1 Kings 22: 20-22
And the Lord said, who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on manner, and another said on that manner. And there came a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said unto him, wherewith? And he said, I will go forth and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so.

 

[brownie0486]

Paramilitary defintion:

"Of, relating to, or being a group of civilians organized in a military fashion, especially to operate in place of or assist regular army troops."

Are US swat units military types as is suggested here?

Lets see, swat tactics were developed for domestic urban environs where special training was required to gain entry into an urban setting to effect the rescue of hostages, take downs of heavily fortified drug dens in the inner cities, and where tactics unique to those environs were not taught to uniformed line officers.

Tactics and equipment were developed which would enable a so taught group of police officers to perform these functions as the regular line officers were lacking in training/tactics/equipment to safely carry out their assigned duties.

The military has only recently developed swat type tactics for urban warfare based on their civilian counterparts experiences in urban settings in the last 12 years or so.

Several active mil types were seen at the HK training facility in the classes I attended back in the early 90's. They were there for urban tactics training, to develop their skills at door to door house clearing. Prior to the gulf war they had no such training in an urban environment.

They discovered in desert storm they had a need to be able to operate in urban environs safely and they suffered many casualties in the gulf war due to their lack of knowledge about how to effect safe house to house searches.

They developed their tactics from this and other swat type training facilities who had already developed same years before out of need.

The tactics being deployed in house to house searches in Baghdad, Tikrit, and other urban settings were brought forth from their superiors who trained in the urban tactics presented and developed by swat types domestically, then passed the same onto their troops who were then trained enmasse in these same tactics to be used during the next war they found themselves in which required this type of tactics.

I happened to have trained along side some of the mil types in urban tactics and got to pick their brains some while on breaks and evenings out after the days training. What they told me was that they were woefully lacking in urban tactics during the gulf war and believed their missions in the future would be more and more urban house to house type warfare. Hence their training alongside their domestic counterparts at HK.

Knowing this, and the definition of paramilitary given above, I see no paramilitarism in our domestically trained swat types. They did not take any tactics from the military when being trained in swat house clearings/entries. Just the opposite, the military ramped their own tactics up for their soldiers based on swat tactics developed domestically.

So to answer the threads header,

We haven't allowed our police agencies to be organized in a military fashion at all. Nor to to operate in place of or assist regular army troops.

Brownie

 

[Hkmp5sd]

Urban fighting started with the military, not civilian LE...

The origins of the tactics used by SWAT originated following the 1972 Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes. It started by the creation of counterterror forces in the German military (GSG9). The British SAS then added counterterror to their tasks and with reluctance at all things new, the US Army created Delta around 1978.

The tactics and equipment are/were developed by military units (civilian LE agencies do not have the R&D budgets to experiment with new toys). Given the prohibition on using US military forces in the US against US citizens, cross-training was initiated with LE agencies and local LE agencies started forming their own SWAT units across the country. IIRC, it was Chief Gates of LAPD that created the first civilian LE SWAT team.

Following the screwups in the early 90's of sending US troops into areas as peacekeepers and watching them get killed on the nightly news, the military incorporated urban warfare training to the basic infantry troops instead of restricting it to elite units.

 

[Boats]

Brownie--to accept your argument would be to accept that the United States armed forces never developed urban assault strategies to deal with the urban environments of the ETO in WW2, the retaking of Seoul and Inchon in the Korean War, or figured out how to assault the enemy in the battle of Hue in Vietnam without input from American cops.

The Army and the Marine Corps may have forgotten a lot about MOUT before Gulf War 1, but it can hardly be said that Darryl Gates and the other pioneers of SWAT, many of whom were veterans of the armed services, created urban assault tactics out of whole cloth and then transmitted them back to the US military. That is counter-factual and ahistorical.

 

[brownie0486]

The military leaders were sending the American military units coordinators and instructors to HK to learn urban assault/entry tactics in the 90's which were then passed to the troops who would be doing the work oversees.

Hkmp5sd: You are right on, but the US military did not take the training from israelis or the german gsg9 units which they could have. They developed their tactics through civilian sources here in this country who had been training police in urban warfare/swat tactics for many years.

I do like how the isrealis operate though. Did you catch the story about the vehicle operator who didn't follow their instructions at the checkpoint recently? A few got shot [ non killed from memory of the story ]and they didn't have to ask 4-5 times for them to do as they were instructed.

Boats: I didn't say house clearing wasn't performed in Europe in ww2 or wars past, they just never had any formal training in it and kinda "winged" it as best they could. After desert storm they set in motion the formal training they have today in the urban settings, taken from the swat tactics developed for the most part domestically, which suggests the cops are not paramilitary and following some form of training developed by the armed forces. It was the other way around here in the US. To say American police are paramilitary speaks to their taking tactics from the mil types when actually the mil types discovered their inadequacy in an urban setting and got their present tactics from the domestic boys.

While at HK they always wore their military uniforms and not civilan clothes. I was fortunate to have trained with a few Ft. Benning army sniper instructors at HK one year during counter-sniper training in an urban environ. One of the spec force instructors was able to show me a certain variation hold on the long guns, prone, which reduced the groups almost in half immediately. They could shoot very well [ better than any of us civilians ] but were there for the urban tactics primarily.

I was more than a little surprised to see military trainers in the classes for domestic LE training myself, but in talking to them I learned they did not have the tactics for house to house and building enrties and were seeking civilan training in that venue. Surprised but pleasantly so by all who worked with them during the weeks of training. This was early 90's mind you, and swat tactics had alreay been being used domestically for years when they came to learn the tactics.

As those are the facts, it becomes a question of who came first, the chicken or the egg? To deem the police as paramilitary they would have to be using military tactics, it is the other way around however.


Brownie

 

[Ian]

Which is really the worse situation - that the police adopt military tactics, or that the preexisting police tactics are so well-honed for warfare that the military adopts them?