NEWS: Use Of SWAT Teams Out Of Control?

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Shots

Will you please provide some documentation that automatic weapons are used by US criminals to such an extent as to warrant SWAT teams.

Senator Feinstein Urges Renewal of Assault Weapons Ban, Passage of Anti-Gang Legislation to Protect Cops & Communities

Growing gang war has devastated parts of Rio de Janeiro

Rise and rise of Dublin's vicious drug lords

Drug wars shatter hopes in Brazil slum

California Central District Drug Threat Assessment

Here is another 3 Million Plus examples

Now if those are still not enough for you, then just turn on Cops on TV to see how many criminals are armed with automatic weapons.

The above are sufficient enough reasons to convince me and I would think given your age, you too would agree.

Edit to add one in your own general area where they use automatic weapons daily.


US Customs Today





[edit on 3/22/2006 by shots]

Originally posted by shots
just turn on Cops on TV to see how many criminals are armed with automatic weapons.

Crawl out from under your bed. "Cops on TV" is just police propoganda intended to instill fear so that you vote for your next local police levy and generally support any thing done by the police. Have you ever seen an episode where the police do anything inappropriate, such as, kick down the door to the wrong house or beat the crap out of a suspect? I bet not.

Originally posted by shots

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Shots

Will you please provide some documentation that automatic weapons are used by US criminals to such an extent as to warrant SWAT teams.

Senator Feinstein Urges Renewal of Assault Weapons Ban, Passage of Anti-Gang Legislation to Protect Cops & Communities

Growing gang war has devastated parts of Rio de Janeiro

Rise and rise of Dublin's vicious drug lords

Drug wars shatter hopes in Brazil slum

California Central District Drug Threat Assessment

Here is another 3 Million Plus examples

Now if those are still not enough for you, then just turn on Cops on TV to see how many criminals are armed with automatic weapons.

The above are sufficient enough reasons to convince me and I would think given your age, you too would agree.

Edit to add one in your own general area where they use automatic weapons daily.


US Customs Today

[edit on 3/22/2006 by shots]

Fancy that... From your post, it seems US SWAT teams are expected to deployed as far afield as Rio or Dublin...

Would have thought you would choose some examples closer to home and relevant to the topic....

Anyhoo, from the logic you seem to follow, rather than banning the Automatic weapons (which are completely uneccessary for ANY civilian to have) you advocate the increased militarization of the Police force AND the increased use of said Military style police units.

Escalating something only makes it worse. If all the cops have body armour and automatic assault weapons, then the criminals are only going to tool up to match them.

But hey, we all know that the US has a fascination with things that kill, so be it on your own heads.....

Theres other ways to serve warrants, then destroying a house is all Im saying.

Thats really harsh, here in the UK, even if you happen to be guilty, the police will secure the house and more often than not pay for the damage.

If the wrong house is done in, then you've hit paydirt!

Originally posted by stumason
Anyhoo, from the logic you seem to follow, rather than banning the Automatic weapons (which are completely uneccessary for ANY civilian to have) you advocate the increased militarization of the Police force AND the increased use of said Military style police units.

Yes, that's correct. Banning firearms of any kind is pretty much frowned upon.

Escalating something only makes it worse. If all the cops have body armour and automatic assault weapons, then the criminals are only going to tool up to match them.

Too bad the inverse is not true. Criminals won't reduce their firepower to match an unarmed police force. If there is a weapon on the market, they will have it, legal or not.

Originally posted by esdad71
Ever think that maybe crime is up? Ever notice how many times on the news now you hear about some moron locked in a house with a hostage or himself and 3 guns?

Try to find a comparison of how many less police officers are killed each year in comparison to previous years when SWAT may not have been involved as much. If it saves lives, then it is worth it.

dgtempe, do you have a link or know what city that occured in?

If it saves lives then it is worth it??? What we're saying here is that SWAT teams are roughing up and even killing innocent people - how does that save lives????

Feature: The Misuse of SWAT -- Paramilitary Policing in the Drug War 3/17/06
stopthedrugwar.org...

Just before dawn one August morning last year, a Sunrise, Florida, SWAT team moved into position outside its target. At a commander's signal, the team kicked down the front door and began its assault with paramilitary precision. Within seconds shots rang out, and within moments it was clear that the team had secured its objective and killed its target.


SWAT Team, Pasadena, Texas
Was it a bank robber holed up for a desperate last stand? Was it a psychotic kidnapper barricaded with his hostages? Was it a tweaked-out ex-con with a grudge and an AK-47? Was it a foreign terrorist operative about to blow a landmark to smithereens? No. It was a 22-year-old bar tender who police had heard might be retailing small amounts of marijuana. He had a pistol permit -- a fact police knew -- and perhaps unsurprisingly, police claimed he went for his gun when a gang of masked, screaming, heavily armed men burst through his door in the pre-dawn darkness.

The Sunrise SWAT team left with the evidence: A couple ounces of pot, and a set of scales. And while Anthony Diotaiuto was dead as a result of the SWAT team's actions, not one of its members faced criminal charges or even departmental discipline. They had gone by the book, even if the result was a life snuffed out over a couple ounces of marijuana.
more...

Well said...
I support the occassional use of SWAT (they are neccessary)
but not the random uses that seem to just be justification for the money spent...
or even training...

Spliff said it best... it is about jobs for gun happy idiots that would be hard core unemployables otherwise (interviewer "it says here that you like to shoot, kill, and break doors, sorry, no jobs call for that skill)

From my familiarity with Police, they are rather gun happy... I can only think SWAT are more so...

Maybe the best thing is to reduce the numbers, and use them over a larger area, to help them justify the need, and restrict them to truly dangerous operations...

I have another story involving the FBI,ATF,and SWAT... but dont want to distract from the SWAT specifically...

lets just say, that i fear that all branches of Law enforcement have lowered standards, and hired way too many since 9-11...
which causes a rash of "promotion seeking" newbies that are likely to make decisions based upon recognition, not safety for the public.

I suppose SWAT isnt needed as often as it is used. The noly time I have been witness to a situation where they came was in my own neighborhood. A couple were really going at it whn the wife pulled out her gun and held the man at gunpoint. Now mind you, being held with a gun pointed to your head when your surrounded by police is probably the easiest time for the victim to actually evade the weapon and quickly subdue the, had the poor coward not been stricken with fear. However the SWAT team was there and several helicopters were flying over (news not police). I suppose all that might must have intimidated her because she dropped the gun after about 15 minutes of them being there and surrendered. I personally think it would have only taken up to 5 or six armed officer with shotguns pointing to get her to drop the gun. Did not see the point of the SWAt being called in.

Of course the whole thing could probably have ben avoided if the husband would have manned up and just subdued her immediatly.

Originally posted by jsobecky
Too bad the inverse is not true. Criminals won't reduce their firepower to match an unarmed police force. If there is a weapon on the market, they will have it, legal or not.

Isn't that the real truth.

What you said reminds me of the phrase "When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have them".

What I would like to see is a ban of the sale of all automatic weapons but that will never happen thanks to the NRA. No I am not against the NRA.

I just think their logic with regard to automatic weapons suck.

Err what does the assault weapons ban have to do with automatic weapons?

The Assault weapons ban deals with semi automatic weapons that bill clinton and a committee arbitrarilly decided that anything that looked menacing was an assault weapon.

Swat teams are very necessary. They serve high-risk warrants, conduct security, high-risk prisoner transport, hostage rescue, handle suicidal individuals, conduct surveilance, and hadle baricadded suspects. And that is what I can think of off the top of my head. SWAT is very much worth every penny, especially in large cities where these types of situations are more likely to happen. In Charlotte the SWAT team gets deployed about 3-4 times a month. Think about it. Someone stated that nationally, the US has 40,000 deployments a year. Charlotte is not a New York, LA, or a Dallas and they could possibly deploy 48 times a year. I would imagine a large city such as NY and LA deploy at least twice as much if not more.

Ludacris-
no one is argueing whether there is an occassional need for them..
they are saying that all to often, they are used for situations that dont justify them...
and in so doing, often expose a fairly calm situation to a group of gunnutty trigger happy authority figures... where accidents are far more likely to result in an accidental death...

several major heavy handed abuses have been documented...
some where innocent people died...

to have them, you have to use them, or else you lose the funding...
so it seems that they are deployed often just to justify there existance...

Swat out of control is hardly the case. Yet there is a growing concern of overuse of swat. Yet this is due to growing number of well armed suspects in possession of fully automatic weapons. I believe both sides have valid arguements as this link below me explains it. There is a reason why SWAT is being utilized more frequently. Yet the question is, Is deploying SWAT everyday for high risk warrants to poeples' houses sending the wrong message to the public that soldiers are in charge of the streets?

www.emergency.com...

Originally posted by dgtempe


I guess we better be careful where we go, who we see, what we do. It could be any one of us with a bullet in our heads.

Just before i left Arizona, a woman tried to pass off a bad prescription, and the cops promptly shot her and killed her.

Why bother with the judicial system anymore? Normally, this woman would have gone to jail, had a hearing , gone to jail. They took her life away in a second.
:shk: Its a darn shame.

You failed to mention this woman's abrupt movements also. If this is the same story I'm thinking of, DG.

Originally posted by shots

Originally posted by jsobecky
Too bad the inverse is not true. Criminals won't reduce their firepower to match an unarmed police force. If there is a weapon on the market, they will have it, legal or not.

Isn't that the real truth.

What you said reminds me of the phrase "When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have them".

What I would like to see is a ban of the sale of all automatic weapons but that will never happen thanks to the NRA. No I am not against the NRA.

I just think their logic with regard to automatic weapons suck.

Yeah..cause here its so darn easy to obtain Automatic weapons. What world are you living in? You have to have an FFL. Basically a dealer. You can't legally own them unless you have one. So yes, mostly only the criminals have them. Otherwise they would all be registered with big brother.Everywhere I go I see automatic weapons... they are everywhere . We can barely own weapons as it is... How could we fight off a despot government without them? Most states you can't even get them. An FFL is registered directly to the BATF.


Yeah, this is bad and turning into a police state quickly.

[edit on 22-3-2006 by Illusory]

[edit on 22-3-2006 by Illusory]

The SWAT losers in Jefferson Country here in Colorado during the Columbine Highschool Shootings were the biggest group of cowards the world has ever seen!!!

Remember one thing, Criminals and Cops all have the same low IQ, just on opposite sides of the law...

KDKA's coverage

I read this post yesterday morning and started to reply. In the middle of writing my reply I was interrupted and had to delete what I had written. After the events that I witnessed yesterday afternoon I’m glad I didn’t get to post that reply.

I work for a company on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the US. Yesterday morning I was informed that since my boss and his boss were out of town I would have to attend a meeting at the office of the investment company that owns the company I work for. Being that it was the middle of the day and parking is at a premium in Pittsburgh, I decided to take the bus instead of driving to the meeting. For those of you unfamiliar with Pittsburgh, all of the City busses converge on one block Downtown.

I got off of my bus and was walking around the corner to catch the connecting bus when two men with body armor grabbed me and started pulling me down the street. Once we went around the corner I was told to go into this restaurant, grab a chair and to wait for further instructions. Two Police officers were posted at the entrance to There were several people in the restaurant who had gone through the same experience as I had and rumors were flying around about what was going on. Everything from bomb threats to an AlQuieda attack was discussed. The restaurant had a television on and we found out about fifteen minutes later that there was a suspected sniper in one of the buildings right where I had gotten off of the bus. The two men who grabbed me were members of Pittsburgh’s SWAT team. They had quickly and efficiently gotten me out of the danger zone while keeping themselves and their body armor between me and where the sniper was supposed to be. After spending about two and a half hours in the restaurant we were released. What had actually happened was pretty funny. A maintance worker at one of the buildings had brought a pellet rifle from home to deal with a pigeon problem and someone saw him with it and called the Police.

This thread’s title is “Use of SWAT Teams Out of Control?”, to me that seems to be an unfair attack on the people who make up these teams. Those two officers could have called for me to leave the area from a position of safety, but they chose to put themselves between me and the possible line of fire doing the best they could to ensure my safety while putting themselves at risk. Like everything else you have good and bad. I am sure that in some places the “SWAT” team is made up of Rambo wannabees who use its existence to try to show how tough they are, but they are in the minority.

Originally posted by LazarusTheLong
Spliff said it best... it is about jobs for gun happy idiots that would be hard core unemployables otherwise (interviewer "it says here that you like to shoot, kill, and break doors, sorry, no jobs call for that skill)

From my familiarity with Police, they are rather gun happy... I can only think SWAT are more so...

Originally posted by GrndLkNatv
Remember one thing, Criminals and Cops all have the same low IQ, just on opposite sides of the law...

I can only surmise that you folks have had either no positive experiences with the police, or that you simply don't understand what their job entails. Tell me, who do you call when you have an emergency?

Originally posted by JBurns
You failed to mention this woman's abrupt movements also. If this is the same story I'm thinking of, DG.

That sounds more like it. "I do know it was a group of about 25 "cops" that ambushed her and shot her in the back.
Arizona style" sounded a little extreme.

If it were up to me SWAT teams would be serving every felony warrant, we simply are too outgunned nowadays. Buy body armor and assault weapons is relativly easy, and the number of criminals with each are increasing daily.

Here where I live in Florida, the swat teams are like Nazis. I support the police in general but alot of these swat guys are testosterone laden, jack booted thugs who suit up for a report of a dogbite.

Just last year, a local guy who didn't show up for court hearing was shot and killed in his home. Not only was he shot and killed, his house was rammed by one of those tank-like vehicles and totally demolished. The cops had the area sealed off for almost two days, none of the local residents could even get home. They had swat teams from 100's of miles away come. It was absolutely ridiculous. Everyone in the area knew this guy and although he was strange, he was no threat.

I believe we are seeing the police of the future in the swat teams.

Most of the criminals that are on the streets these days should be in jail. We have a judicial system that lets these scum bag rapists and murderers out so they can commit more offenses....maybe to justify swat teams.

Like I say, I do support the police and they perform a difficult job and for the most part are unappreciated but the frequent use of swat teams is, in my view, totally unnecessary and more so, frightening.

[edit on 13-3-2007 by jblaze]