E5RANGER375
Shooter
The problem isn't with the SWAT teams. It's in how they're deployed.
SWAT is necessary in dealing with things like barricaded suspects (real ones, not imaginary) and hostage situations. Back in the day when I was on the street in Cincinnati our team might deploy once or twice a year.
The drug war has poured seized money into LEO agencies allowing them to buy stuff they don't need. Small departments send their personnel to SWAT training, then have no true SWAT situations for years on end.
The solution is to CREATE a need for SWAT by turning routine duties into a SWAT situation.
In my day the idea of sending SWAT to execute a search or arrest warrant, even for a murder suspect, would have been considered laughable. We just didn't do it. SWAT stands for SPECIAL weapons and tactics.
There is nothing SPECIAL about serving a warrant. You go up and you knock on the bad man's door. If he doesn't open it you kick it in, and you go in and get him. I did it dozens of times in my career and never required SWAT to do it.
SWAT must be returned to its origins wherein SWAT deployment becomes a RARE occurence, as it should be, rather than a ROUTINE one as it is now.
ok, i can agree with this.