I've said this before. There are many professional SWAT teams across the country that train and drill on tactics, response, counter-terror, etc. They are a necessary and critical part of law enforcement.

That being said, the FBI HRT =/= the Laurens County SWAT Team. Just because you put on black nomex suits with body armor and tactical weapons and go to the shooting range once a month because your department got a grant to spend on gear does not make you a professional counterterror organization. Just because you go to a special class once a week and talk about SWAT does not make you a professional SWAT officer.

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Posted by Gulf Coast Tiger

Ms Gulf Coast

Member since Jan 2004

18703 posts

Posted on 12/11/14 at 1:55 pm to elprez00

quote:
That being said, the FBI HRT =/= the Laurens County SWAT Team. Just because you put on black nomex suits with body armor and tactical weapons and go to the shooting range once a month because your department got a grant to spend on gear does not make you a professional counterterror organization. Just because you go to a special class once a week and talk about SWAT does not make you a professional SWAT officer.

You are 100% correct.

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Posted by LSU0358

Member since Jan 2005

7920 posts

Posted on 12/11/14 at 2:36 pm to elprez00

quote:
There are many professional SWAT teams across the country that train and drill on tactics, response, counter-terror, etc. They are a necessary and critical part of law enforcement.

While I agree, they are horribly overused. I'd like to see the stats on the normal actions of a SWAT team. Anyone have anything on breakdown of SWAT usage. I'd be willing to bet the majority of there work stems from the War on Drugs.

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Posted by efrad

Member since Nov 2007

18651 posts

Posted on 12/11/14 at 2:44 pm to elprez00

quote:
I've said this before. There are many professional SWAT teams across the country that train and drill on tactics, response, counter-terror, etc. They are a necessary and critical part of law enforcement.

Of course they are a necessary part of law enforcement.

However,

quote:
There has been more than a 1,400% increase in the total num- ber of police paramilitary deployments, or callouts, between 1980 and 2000. Today, an estimated 45,000 SWAT-team deployments are conducted yearly among those depart- ments surveyed; in the early 1980s there was an average of about 3,000 (Kraska, 2001). The trend-line demonstrated that this growth began during the drug war of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Source

1400% increase in SWAT deployments, meanwhile violent crime is at an all-time low....