Ga SWAT....

[Solus]

What he really paid for was the offense of attempting to attack a police officer....sort of anyone who is aggressive to a police officer needs to be swiftly made to pay.

I stopped watching the "Cop" TV shows because, in so many cases, when they caught the bad guy who ran none of he misdeeds mattered a bit but they emphatically drove home his BIG mistake of trying to evade the cops.

I guess it could be the adrenaline of the chase talking, but I'd seen it so often and in so many situations, other than a chase that I do believe the BIGGEST offense a perp can commit would be dissing the police.   No matter what the actually crime was, they paid for the offense against the cops ....until court day.

[crusader rabbit]

It;s a shame to see the police have devolved into little more than a reasonably well organized gang.  Sort of like:  Hurt one of our's and we'll take you out.

[Ichiban]

It;s a shame to see the police have devolved into little more than a reasonably well organized gang.  Sort of like:  Hurt one of our's and we'll take you out.

Sometimes I think that is the major reason/purpose for most SWAT teams.  That and justifying the "toys" budget.

[tombogan03884]

After putting some thought into it I have to say that SWAT teams are bad.
Giving Cops automatic weapons was the first step in a downward trend, (Little Bohemia any one ? )
It is a spiral that replaces "Policing" with fire power and leads to the militarization of police forces.
Remember it was not Ninja cops who stopped Charles Whitman, it was "good ole boys" with deer rifles.
The implementation of SWAT teams was one of the factors that lead to the egregious actions of NOPD during hurricane Katrina.

[Solus]

After putting some thought into it I have to say that SWAT teams are bad.
Giving Cops automatic weapons was the first step in a downward trend, (Little Bohemia any one ? )
It is a spiral that replaces "Policing" with fire power and leads to the militarization of police forces.
Remember it was not Ninja cops who stopped Charles Whitman, it was "good ole boys" with deer rifles.
The implementation of SWAT teams was one of the factors that lead to the egregious actions of NOPD during hurricane Katrina.

Exactly.   Cops get an "us against them" attitude just by dealing with scum so often....soon the 'us" is Cops and the "them" is everyone else.  SWAT team mentality reinforces the gap and ups the force that can be applied to "them"

On the battle field, that attitude is more practical as most everyone in front of you is "them"....of course collateral damage might be higher because of it.

[Sponsor]

[ratcatcher55]

I wasn't there and I am not a cop so with that out of the way here I go.

If a man charges you with a knife what will you do? The only choices I see are retreat (Cop#1) or shoot (SWAT). Tasers seem to work about 90% which in my mind is not enough of a percentage to bet my life on.  We had a dead local officer who made that mistake.

Waiting them out, well I can tell you from talking with friends who are real life Metro SWAT cops that may work well with some one that is distraught but not with someone off their meds . No one gets more stable from not taking their medicne and being kept up for 2 days talking to the mediator. In the three case locally all three folks ended up either offing themselves or coming out shooting and were killed.  No one was happy with the results.

He was just minding his own business? So why was the cop called in the first place? It's OK Uncle Enid always runs around threating folks with a knife. It's funny how some of you all bitch about the media reports except when it fits your agenda. I tend to wait for a complete AAR before getting upset.

Sorry Solus, Charles Whitman was killed by two Austin Police officers who stormed the clock tower. Yes sir locals had long guns and put up fire but they never touched him.

I strongly agree that using SWAT for low level drug warrants is just justifing the cost of the team. A very poor use of budget.
Fully automatic weapons, well if I had one I would carry it with me. Most departments who I have trained have aquired them from DOD or DOJ surplus. My local department will not have one because of the cost of maintaining a team. They call the KYSP if need be.

Most cops call SWAT, Sit Wait And Talk.  Normal patrol then rush like hell and wait.

Us against them mentality? Yes, it is a very big problem which many cops have trouble dealing with. I just got through reading If I Knew Then 2 edited by Brian Willis and a number of stories are about cops treating family members as suspects and the damage it does to everyone. After 25 years of training cops, firefighters, EMS and emergency responders I'm not one of them.  We can be friends and training buddies but there will always be that difference between us. Such is life.

Off the soapbox and off to the range.

[Solus]

I wasn't there and I am not a cop so with that out of the way here I go.

If a man charges you with a knife what will you do? The only choices I see are retreat (Cop#1) or shoot (SWAT). Tasers seem to work about 90% which in my mind is not enough of a percentage to bet my life on.  We had a dead local officer who made that mistake.

Waiting them out, well I can tell you from talking with friends who are real life Metro SWAT cops that may work well with some one that is distraught but not with someone off their meds . No one gets more stable from not taking their medicne and being kept up for 2 days talking to the mediator. In the three case locally all three folks ended up either offing themselves or coming out shooting and were killed.  No one was happy with the results.

He was just minding his own business? So why was the cop called in the first place? It's OK Uncle Enid always runs around threating folks with a knife. It's funny how some of you all bitch about the media reports except when it fits your agenda. I tend to wait for a complete AAR before getting upset.

Sorry Solus, Charles Whitman was killed by two Austin Police officers who stormed the clock tower. Yes sir locals had long guns and put up fire but they never touched him.

I strongly agree that using SWAT for low level drug warrants is just justifing the cost of the team. A very poor use of budget.
Fully automatic weapons, well if I had one I would carry it with me. Most departments who I have trained have aquired them from DOD or DOJ surplus. My local department will not have one because of the cost of maintaining a team. They call the KYSP if need be.

Most cops call SWAT, Sit Wait And Talk.  Normal patrol then rush like hell and wait.

Us against them mentality? Yes, it is a very big problem which many cops have trouble dealing with. I just got through reading If I Knew Then 2 edited by Brian Willis and a number of stories are about cops treating family members as suspects and the damage it does to everyone. After 25 years of training cops, firefighters, EMS and emergency responders I'm not one of them.  We can be friends and training buddies but there will always be that difference between us. Such is life.

Off the soapbox and off to the range.

Whitman needed to be stopped.   If he had been up there after breaking a window and threatening anyone who came up after him with a knife, I hope other means of resolution would be tried before storming him and shooting him.

[tombogan03884]

That's a long post so I will add my comments in the quote so it doesn't get confusing.

I wasn't there and I am not a cop so with that out of the way here I go.

If a man charges you with a knife what will you do? The only choices I see are retreat (Cop#1) or shoot (SWAT). Tasers seem to work about 90% which in my mind is not enough of a percentage to bet my life on.  We had a dead local officer who made that mistake.

In the 5 years I have been living in this county there have been several similar incidents, none have resulted in any injury to any one.
There is not enough detail to be sure but it seems the first cop acted appropriately.
The SWAT team how ever seems to have reacted like they were trying to beat a schedule. There were no hostages in danger there fore there was no legitimate reason to escalate a situation that would normally have simply petered out when the suspect got bored,
He does not have appeared to have shown any aggression except to people trying to force their way into his home.
In effect he was executed for "suspicion of vandalism".

Waiting them out, well I can tell you from talking with friends who are real life Metro SWAT cops that may work well with some one that is distraught but not with someone off their meds . No one gets more stable from not taking their medicne and being kept up for 2 days talking to the mediator. In the three case locally all three folks ended up either offing themselves or coming out shooting and were killed.  No one was happy with the results.

As mentioned above, it has been uniformly successful in this county for 5 years

He was just minding his own business? So why was the cop called in the first place? It's OK Uncle Enid always runs around threating folks with a knife. It's funny how some of you all bitch about the media reports except when it fits your agenda. I tend to wait for a complete AAR before getting upset.

Based on the info available in the article he was threatening no one until confronted in his own home.


Sorry Solus, Charles Whitman was killed by two Austin Police officers who stormed the clock tower. Yes sir locals had long guns and put up fire but they never touched him.

That was me, not Solus. While I stand corrected, (just double checked Wiki, it was 3 APD officers and 1 civilian, though the fatal shoots were fired by APD officer McCoy ) The 3 APD Officers were just cops doing a cop job, not armored "storm troopers" with an attitude.

I strongly agree that using SWAT for low level drug warrants is just justifing the cost of the team. A very poor use of budget.
Fully automatic weapons, well if I had one I would carry it with me. Most departments who I have trained have aquired them from DOD or DOJ surplus. My local department will not have one because of the cost of maintaining a team. They call the KYSP if need be.

Most cops call SWAT, Sit Wait And Talk.  Normal patrol then rush like hell and wait.

It is not simply the equipment of SWAT teams I find improper, but also, probably more so, the hiring and selection process that tends to focus on things like military experience. The purpose, mindset, and "rules of engagement for police, are and should be quite different from those of the military, blurring the line between the 2 is a bad thing.
That is underlined by this incident. This was not Osama or some terrorist in Pakistan, nor were these guys SOC troops, regardless of what they may wish to believe.
Us against them mentality? Yes, it is a very big problem which many cops have trouble dealing with. I just got through reading If I Knew Then 2 edited by Brian Willis and a number of stories are about cops treating family members as suspects and the damage it does to everyone. After 25 years of training cops, firefighters, EMS and emergency responders I'm not one of them.  We can be friends and training buddies but there will always be that difference between us. Such is life.

Off the soapbox and off to the range.

I'm still fascinated by the one thing no one else has mentioned, a half hour for 10 hot shots to get in to the house ?

[Solus]

That's a long post so I will add my comments in the quote so it doesn't get confusing.

I'm still fascinated by the one thing no one else has mentioned, a half hour for 10 hot shots to get in to the house ?

I figured the reporter just didn't get exact information from the police and what bothers me about that is that they said they decided to storm the back door because they thought he would be disabled from the tazing....sort of seems like they aren't sure exactly how long it took after the tazing to make that decision.

[tombogan03884]

I figured the reporter just didn't get exact information from the police and what bothers me about that is that they said they decided to storm the back door because they thought he would be disabled from the tazing....sort of seems like they aren't sure exactly how long it took after the tazing to make that decision.

Apparently to long.

Since it is a newspaper item there is no video to judge for ourselves and it is almost guarunteed that some aspect of the report is screwed up.