Quote Originally Posted by gute View Post
I apologize for posting here but I'm having a problem singing in and posting on the blog page. I think remarking about this article works with this thread since the article opens with a drug search warrant. I wasn't there so I don't know all the facts, but it doesn't look good.

The author writes that SWAT came about to counter preceived threats and I would argue that SWAT came about because of real threats.

IMO LE has too many gear queers and barrel suckers, but I think the guys are a product of the times. Many cops are former military and these guys tend to gravitate toward the SWAT/HRT thing - which I think is good. Some never served in the military so they do the SWAT thing to run around in camo and shoot stuff. All like the hell out of it and that's cool with me. Big city police departments have full time teams while smaller departments go the part time route or intra-agency. SWAT teams give a police chief, city manager, mayor a little CYA. A group of officers who train together on a regular basis. It's all about liability. I don't think the group in Utah was a SWAT team. As I've written before not everything needs to be a hard, flash bang entry, but due to liability many departments have their SWAT teams do all the entries.

I believe there is a growing schism between LE and the public, much like the military and the public. The public doesn't like to see the dirty work getting done. Again, many in LE have lost sight of the fact that they are providing a service to the public and not the other way around. Self-aggrandizing by LE gets on my nerves - I picked the job, nobody made me do it.

The author writes at the end of the article about community policing and I think he is writing how we need to return to community policing from SWAT. Community policing is a strategy, SWAT is tactics. Police Departments everywhere engage in community policing every day. IMO the pendulum has just swung too one way and needs to come back to the middle.
I agree SWAT formed for valid reasons and have proved their worth multiple times; however, that doesn't justify the inappropriate use of SWAT. Not every target is a hard target, but what happened in this story is inexcusable. If cops are to risk adverse to knock on the door and serve a search warrant without a SWAT team then it seems there are other options. Call the guy on the phone and tell him to open the door you have a search warrant. I guess he could flush his six plants down the toilet, but in the end so the f*&# what? He was vet, he had six marijuana plants, was it really worth getting an officer killed and destroying multiple lives? Hell they could have posted a stake out until he left the house and arrested him outside and served the warrant. Like you said guys like doing this, it is what they train for, but when they lose perspective on what they're there for then mature leaders need to reel them in.