Juan, the majority of SWAT ops end with less violence than lesser trained officers making entry. The TTPs employed normally overwhelm, and hence, a less likely chance exists for a gunfight.
Agreed. However, the problem is that I'm of the opinion that SWAT teams are used to make entry in cases where an "entry" in that sense of the word
shouldn't occur in the first place. This could have a lot to do with my opinion of the War on Drugs in general, and I suppose I shouldn't expect anybody to agree. I just see no reason drug warrants on nonviolent offenders can't be of the more traditional variety. Sure, Joe Dealer may manage to flush his stash. But I don't place preserving evidence over innocent human life...even a statistically insignificant number of innocent human lives.
Of course, anything that imposes an immediate threat of serious injury or death can be called anything you want, but it is a threat nonetheless. And must be dealt with in order to preserve life (whether an officer's, hostage, other citizen's, etc). And quite often, SWAT teams have the tools and training to end a potentially bad situation without loss of life where another officer would have to use deadly force b/c he does not have those tools or training.
I agree. And once you put a SWAT team in a house, I fully expect to react to any threats against their lives with quick and lethal force. Which is, again, why I question
the policies that put them there in the first place, not their reactions once there.
And again, while I cannot speak for anybody else I am
not talking about hostage situations or raids where intel suggests the occupants have both the means and a relatively strong inclination to react violently. I'm talking about serving drug warrants against nonviolent offenders, and
nothing else.
In many of these situations, the use of a SWAT team
creates the "potentially bad situation," so ending that situation without violence more often than "normal" officers doesn't impress me...I'd rather not see the situation created needlessly in the first place. Again, not the fault of SWAT officers, but rather of the policies and higher-ups that send them there. Once they're there, I expect them to do their job.
Also, in the situation of mistaken addresses (or, say, where somebody higher up decides they need to hit the other half of duplexes just for the heck of it) you've now increased the odds of a gunfight ensuing
by an infinite factor. Because I don't care how many "knock, announce, and wait" warrants you serve on law-abiding citizens,
none are going to result in gunfire or loss of life (unless a half-asleep resident trips down the stairs). However, dynamic entries can cause frightened homeowners to reach for weapons, which suddenly makes them very dead. At the least, it causes the entire situation to be much more confrontational than it would otherwise be, which results in officers conducting the raid/search to be....less than courteous.
I'm hoping nobody is foolish to suggest that such discourtesy might be due to the attitudes of the (stipulated to be law-abiding) residents might bring that discourtesy onto themselves. If you break into my home in the middle of the night when I've done nothing wrong,
expect no courtesy. You want courtesy, knock.
Are we threats to our fellow citizens? Of course not because we use them responsibly and in accordance with the law.
