The Law Enforcement Officer Thread

I think it's a bit nuts for every town and city to have a swat team with actual tanks/APCs, it makes sense to me for some police to have SWAT training. the heavily armed forces should really be kept to a minimum. one or two centrally located squads per county could respond fairly quickly.

Maybe. Maybe not. All depends on what is going on with the county.

Part of the problem is they start over using SWAT for just about anything rather then realistic high risk warrants. This is a notable problem with places that get a SWAT department.

High risk areas would get more, of course.

Exactly. I think having swat somewhat separated from the normal police force might help with that. if nothing else it means one or two more guys questioning the sanity of using SWAT resources on stupid things.

Updates on the Ibragim Todashev case.

From the story itself:

And from the comments:

SWAT is very much separate.

The thing to realize is that sometimes there may be too big a gulf between the capabilities of the common patrolman and SWAT.

Some place like Los Angeles is going to have a more capable general force then say Austin or New York even though the sizes are somewhat comparable.

If the little guy can't do it, they have no choice but shoot for the bigger guns regardless if it is ideal or not unfortunately.

So basically the problem is that there is a missing step or three in the Escalation of Force ladder, for whatever reason, causing the cops to make the leap from "Little Bit Of Force" to "A Whole Lotta Force" sooner than they would otherwise.

Yeah, not sure how you'd fix it though.

Making some sort of in between organization between normal cops and SWAT would probably be too much.

Maybe give your normal guys a little more kit?

That takes money and need.

Some areas don't need SWAT.

I would like to know how big of a problem this is and what area because I think that would be very telling in a lot of ways.

Gabe: All over the US in general. It is not one general location. The overall militarization of the Police force is a wide spread issue with SWAT being the big focus. Las Vegas Swat got called to deal with domestic abuse, Swat called in Texas to raid an Organic Food farm. Virginia a Swat team was used to raid a guys house for making a 50$ bet between friends.

Maryland passed a bill requiring more transparency in regards to SWAT activity they found over six months in 2009 there were over 800 SWAT raids in a single county. I very highly doubt even half of those were necessary raids. It wasn't even a large city like Baltimore.

Also most SWAT are directly part of various departments right down to funding and recruitment from the same pools of personnel. The SWAT don't decide what busts they are going to do someone else is telling them where to go. They are very much attached to the various Police Departments.

SWAT are very frequently being used a hammer and every crime no matter the severity is being treated as a nail. Non-violent offenders, petty crime arrests, closing down a restaurant with licensing issues etc.

I remember a case where a swat team was sent after an animal shelter fir having a wild deer fawn. Then shot the deer.

SWAT is deployed by the police department, but they are not part of it in many ways.

SWAT trains separate, often has their own bunks in the FOP lodges, etc. Think of it like Rangers vs. Regular Enlisted. They may interact, but thanks to their training and how they are treated compared to patrol they aren't the same.

And just like Rangers, they can't choose where they go or how the call goes down. I have heard many cases where SWAT was intentionally misinformed or denied certain information. SWAT also isn't allowed to refuse a call. Most guys have been on the force about ten years before they make SWAT. You can only imagine the bullshit these guys have seen to get to where they are, red tape and all.

I was raised by a SWAT officer. I grew up shooting the weapons and trying on my adopted uncle's body armor.

They have little say. And especially considering the competition to get into SWAT, maximized by the surplus of vets coming back, no one wants to rock it too hard lest they loose their place. When my dad left he had 72 men in line vying for his place. SWAT is also one of the few places where your benefits are mostly secure.

They are just as much a part of the department as the rangers are a part of the army. They are notably Army Rangers. Just like the Seals are Navy SEA Ls and so on and so forth all the spec ops branches. Just because they receive different accommodations, gear, and training does not make them separate from their organizations.

If anything your informative post drives my point home. They are under the thumb of the department(s)^note Like Gabe noted earlier some SWAT teams are multi-jurisdictional and are told where to go and what to do. They are enforcing department policies and local laws.

While SWAT can receive bad intel they should damn well known it is fact that might happen and should spend more time making sure they are hitting the right target. It doesn't take a genius or a lot of effort to make sure you have the right house instead of raiding the wrong house three doors down.

Now for those wondering how can SWAT afford all this kit. They get subsidized by multiple government agencies. This includes the Department of Justice, Home Land Security, and even the Department of Defense.

We raised money in the community to buy my dad's gear because no one else would.

Who do you think gives SWAT their Intel?

Rangers make their plans from what other people give them. As do SEALS or anyone else. Confirming bad data isn't an officers fault, just like I don't fault a patrolman walking in on a wrong call because dispatch told them something wrong because dispatch can only say what they're told too.

EDIT: just like military, not all SWAT teams are treated equal. Federal funding is dished out based on convicted arrests, which can really leave some needs jacked.

We're on the same side that there is a problem, but like many problems, if not every problem in America, shit rolls downhill and all you need to do is look at the top of the heap to know who is dropping it.

edited 25th Mar '14 7:47:36 PM by Gabrael

Gabe: I have sneaking suspicions you father was no longer in SWAT by the time the post 9/11 environment we live in now set in. Meaning yours and his experiences with SWAT are likely from a different era in American Policing altogether.

Actually a military officers job is to make sure the intel they have is good as possible. If the intel has holes its his job to go hey our intel is kinda fucked up here is how this is going to go down instead. He is the guy with the rank for a reason. There is also the fact that something as simple as checking the address before you knock in someone's door does wonders for avoiding raiding the wrong house. Its not hard and can be done with all the access to info they have.

Funding and gear is not just given it out for arrests and convictions. Often those don't matter. Especially in rural Podunk locations who are getting this kind of funding. The DOJ and Homeland hand out funds and gear like candy for even rural departments claiming to be fighting a war on drugs and/or organized crime. I forgot the DEA also has a hand in those honey pots as well. The DOD tosses a bit of money and gear around partially to have their equipment tested and vetted when they can't get it through the usual military channels. There are literally Podunk towns getting such funding for body armor, weapons, and armored vehicles.

Part of funding is increasingly coming from various abusive asset seizure laws written to be used against organized crime. It is often abused to snatch funds and property for lesser concerns. Departments take a chunk and if SWAT helps they get a piece of the pie. The business of asset seizure is rather profitable for the police. Just like why ticket quotas exist. Tickets are a source of income. It is incentivized.

Hell there are some locations where they use SWAT for basic code enforcement. Something a city inspector and a single officer could do.

Listen to this They mention a small Podunk county that has low crime. They get an APC for their SWAT team to "guard" their pumpkin festival.

Shit may roll downhill but unlike the military the many police units do not have mandatory participation. They can quit.

edited 25th Mar '14 9:36:58 PM by TuefelHundenIV

After 9-11 was when I went through the academy and prepared with the SWAT team.

SWAT can quit? Cops can just quit? No they can't. Do you realize how hard it is to find a job out there man? Go to the military thread and ask them about the unemployment rate for vets. Then come tell me that people can just quit.

And again, if bad info is passed along all legal channels then it's not the fault of the officers acting on it. It is the fault of the administration giving it. It's not like someone is allowed to sit in the back of the SWAT van with a laptop to Google the shit. Besides, they are overworked and under supported already.

grants and subsidies work on a different level than cconsistent budget funding. I write grants. It is pretty easy to get what you want if you know what you are doing, know how to ask, and know who to ask.

A city budget for law enforcement is based mostly on convicted arrests because it is only from a conviction that they get paid. Just like the tickets. They don't get paid for warnings and it actually costs to write a bogus ticket. Well it also costs to arrest someone only to find them not guilty. That is the baseline budget for police. If anything as a grant writer I would loveto be in a small town because they would have a very low rate of convicted arrests compared to something like Detroit or Vegas, so it would be easier for them to get much higher ffunding than their bigger counterparts.

This isn't a cut and dry issue. If anything the officers being used as political pawns are just as much the victim as the people unjustly treated or accidently targeted.

And if I recall from your discussions in the past you didn't make it very far before you got sidelined by a nasty and unfortunate injury. There is a world of difference from preparing for something and actually doing it. Just because some guy went to boot camp and washed out for some reason doesn't make them military.

Yes cops can quit, cut the bogus semantics. You can't quit the military. I already know how hard veterans in general have finding a job. A ex cop who has never done anything notably wrong by comparison has it yards easier. Private security that pays top dollar gobble up cops more then they do military. Never mind the police have unions who pull strings for them. The exception being military police or military reservists whose civilian job is police. The perception of less baggage and less likely to have serious injuries or other issues is a huge plus for the average cop. They are more likely to get the high dollar security jobs like guarding nuclear power plants for example. Ex SWAT cops get the same deal and they have access to other jobs that may require them to be armed with weapons other then a pistol and shotgun. Cops have the added bonus of basically being considered civilians compared to the military.

However this is probably the one spot military reservists have it better then the rest of the military. If they are police, emt's, and fire they have better prospects in and out of the military.

A cop can come into work and say I am going to quit. That's it. They may try to talk the cop out of it but ultimately it is the cops call and they eventually have to process the cop out. A military person can't do that. Not only do you have to ride out your contract the military can forcefully extend it for as long as they see fit.

If you do walk out from the military with intent to never return its called Desertion. You can go to prison for quitting the military and your life is ruined by the bad discharge that will hang around your neck from the records that follow you for the rest of your life. There is no statute of limitations on deserters during times of conflict for example which means the chasers can hunt you for as long as you live or until you are caught. Even in times of peace they often find ways to make it stick even several years later. You leave the military before they are done with you, you are pretty much fucked. Even if they don't catch you in times of peace that record you left behind and the statute of limitations on peace time desertions hits your name has permanent black mark that will pop up with your name on background checks.

Not all of it is grants. Again even the military is in on getting cities and even backwater locations who feasibly should not have the money for it, Armored Vehicles designed for military use. Never mind assorted piles of tactical gear, weapons, and body armor. These locations then take all of this stuff and turn around and start using it often when they don't really need to.

SWAT is being used for things they really shouldn't like seizing a bunch of bhuddist monks touring the US here in Omaha who overstayed their visa by mistake. They used a SWAT team to take them. That made the local news. Bit much don't you think? There was project in a couple of states who were using SWAT for Child Protective Services. Again a bit much.

No matter how you color it there is simply no excuse to raid the wrong house when you have the information on your warrant and very quick and easy access to that info well before you get out to the location. I mean its not like peoples addresses are not on their homes and mail boxes so the mail can get to them now is it. Oh wait it is. Nevermind the plethora of info they can get from the city and town they serve. No excuse there.

Also the majority of raids are not spur of the moment they have time to check their info coordinate with local law enforcement and make plans for their raids. There is simply little or no excuse for relying on rampantly bad info and hitting the wrong house or taking the wrong person because someone couldn't be assed to take a couple minutes somewhere to check the location or vet their intel sources before hand. Also relying less on SWAT and instead checking it out more thoroughly would do wonders for everyone. There is plenty of responsibility at the feet of both Police and SWAT who choose to act on that info.

All I hear from the LEO community is frequent avoidance of any an all responsibility for their fuck ups. This includes paying for knocking in the wrong door on the wrong house and often hurting or even killing people, damaging property, killing pets, and generally generating utterly avoidable havoc. There is very little excuse for the often piss poor performance when something like time and effort before you get to the door kicking phase does wonders to eliminate serious issues like hitting the wrong target.

If you are the one netting people more money via grants they are grossly underpaying you for finding them money in that fashion.

My second job is with an art gallery man. I write grants to get kid's art lessons and bring in artists in residence. The principle for applying for a grant is the same across the board though.

No, cops can't just quit. They have families and not every place has a nice little security job lined up for them somewhere. Even you have a security job and it doesn't pay anything. So chill.

I have more first hand experience with SWAT than you. You don't have to be one to have valid experience and education. Just like your wife was never a Marine but I wouldn't doubt her word at all if she said something concerning the Marines.

I agree with you that SWAT is being mishandled in general. I asked for specific instances because I was curious if there was a pattern. Is one case because the town was too poor and didn't have enough capable officers to handle it? Is a mayor somewhere trying to wave his dick? Is a captain somewhere not being fair to his men and is misleading information? Is the general public demanding higher use of SWAT or not?

Case by case basis helps establish a trend and that is how we solve problems.

But you don't throw footmen under the bus when they don't have the power to change that.I wouldn't blame a Navy SEAL for being sent on a fucked up mission should he deem it so. He was following orders. I sure as hell won't start blaming a cop who was acting on his in good faith too.

It's not a problem with SWAT. It's a problem with the administration, news networks creating a culture of fear, economic tensions, etc.

Lack of other jobs isn't what Teufel, the actual illegality of quitting one's current job is. The cops, unless they sign up under some similar contracts to military personnel, always have the option to quit and look for another job, apply for welfare, live off the land, become a homeless guy, etc., but he probably won't risk arrest and trial for quitting. That's all Teufel is saying.

Now, if we could calm down a notch before things get too heated.

Just following orders is not a valid excuse and never has been. Not checking obviously and easily verifiable information is not an excuse especially in the current day and age where LEO agencies have access to a lot more info then ever before. SWAT and Police alike have made it a rather bad habit to not fact check their info before using their heavy handed force. SWAT commanders can exercise varying levels of approval or cooperation and many SWAT go along with this stuff because they get money out of it. We know this because the people who have been SWAT have told us as much.

I would very much doubt anything my wife says about Marines especially about being one seeing as how she has never been one. Just like I don't take the word of a boot camp washout for the same reason. Again there is a world of difference between doing the training and not finishing and actually doing the job. Claiming to have the same level of expertise and knowledge as someone who has even been doing the actual job for even a year is at best questionable.

Yes cops can quit and you are again laying out bogus semantics that have nothing to do with the facts. You are trying to compare an apple to an orange here. There may be a few unique circumstances against quitting on the spot such as in the middle of doing their job but nothing prevents them from legally quitting the next day if they so chose. I laid out the painfully obvious difference in details for you namely it is not a crime for a cop to quit their job if they chose to. If you are in the military you can't quit. You become a criminal if you do. If you choose to ignore factual information that is on you.

The abuse of swat has literally happened in pretty much every state even Hawaii and Alaska. They happen in both big cities like LA and various small towns in rural areas. What makes this worse is the fact that crime had started to fall of steadily for well over a decade.

There is also a vast world of difference between throwing someone under bus and expecting them actually do their job well instead of behaving like heavy handed thugs and throw the public under the bus instead.

The Milgram Experiment says hi.

edited 26th Mar '14 12:50:50 PM by TobiasDrake

Even if Milgram's study didn't have the problems it does, a soldier or policeman's obligation to obey orders does not protect them from responsibility, either moral or criminal, for their actions.

Tobias: Milgrams doesn't prove jack. Never mind the fact that it doesn't count for common acts of defiance. Centuries of people choosing to not follow orders says hello back.

A homeless man that was illegally camping out in the Albuquerque foothills of New Mexico was fatally shot by police. The officers claim they were justified in doing so because they felt the guy was a "direct threat" to the officers (ie, he took out a knife when he was stunned, and apparently made a lot of threats on the cops' lives during the 3 or so hours they spent trying to talk him down). This has caused something of an outrage in some protest groups, one of which being Progress Now, led by a former police officer who uses this incident as a statement about the over-militarization of the police department in Albuquerque having an effect on people's lives.

Since this is just one source, I don't know if everything here is right or if they have all the information. What I do know is a lot of people really criticize this decision, and this has only given people more reason to hate cops even more.

Seems somewhat relevant for me to mention this, considering the current talks about the militarization of police and all that.

edited 26th Mar '14 2:26:14 PM by Nettacki

There was apparently an incident involving a police officer shooting a minor in my little town a day or two ago. Information about it is really sketchy, but according to people I know who saw it, it involved the minor attempting to flee pursuit in a vehicle that may have been stolen, and when he was boxed in he tried to run over the officers that had exited their vehicles. One opened fire and he was hit in the leg, and he's now in a hospital somewhere.

All in all the officers sound pretty justified in shooting him the the statements I've heard are true, but what makes this notable to me is the insane length the police department is going to to keep this quiet. We have a few local papers that have been given zero information so far (unusual because the sheriff usually gives them updates only hours after most incidents) and people posting about it on social media have been told to stop. I have a hunch that a few may have been threatened.

My WMG is that the minors involved were either family of someone in the department or one of the town bigwigs. Everyone's starting their reelection campaigns a little early this year and they've already devolved into unusually nasty squabbles that have seriously affected the sherrif's department and their enforcement of laws.