PM and SWAT

SWAT teams are being overused, very oversused IMO. But, it is the normal course of things. Once you get a budget for a SWAT team, you must show that the SWAT team is needed, if you dont, well, you get your budget lowered. It is pathetic, I read an article, IIRC, of a Department down in Florida, that assembled its own private Air Force, you know, to help fight the War on Drugs, opps, I mean the war on the BOR.

Dont want to hear the "just following orders", or the "I am just a messenger" or the ever popular "cop out" of "if you dont like the laws, change them". If you are an officer, responsible for upholding the constitution, the oath you swore to when YOU decided to apply and become an officer, I think you need to have a grasp of the constitution, the document you swore to uphold and defend.
 
Wildcard, we all know where you stand on SWAT, and cops, and war on drugs and the moral high ground. You come across like a mother of a high school basketball player: You love to cry foul, and yet do not know what the foul is.
 
Back on Track.

The issues are simple to me. In the hands of people like Pat Rogers or Ken Campbell or Breacher or a dozen others on this board, I have no problem giving the nod to whatever tools they ask. Why? Because they are to be trusted.

Unfortunately, the world we live in does not allow us to trust the hundreds of departments and thousands of government agents who are given "equal access" to these laws and tools. It just seems to me that Americans, ALL of us, have come to define issues in terms of our narrow and local experience. We've stopped thinking critically. We need to stop doing that and look at trends as they affect our national way of life. That means those who see EVERY need for such laws, teams and tools and those who see NO need whatsoever.

Until we can all see it from the eyes of the "Other Side", each of which believing they somehow possess a "truth" that remains invisible to their opposition, these issues will continue to be arbitrated by faceless bureaucrats and irresponsible politicians.

I don't know the answer. But I know that continued polarization exacerbates the problem.
Rich
 
BreacherUp!, despite Wildcards (now) famous tirades, he is correct in one thing.

SWAT is being used entirely too much. Like HRT, SWAT was never designed for everyday service of warrants, which several jurisdictions appear to be doing these days. In addition, I submit no-knock warrants have also become routine. (No, not everywhere. That would be an absurd distortion of the current facts.)

Simply stated, using extreme measures for routine practices invite disaster. If not routinely, then at a much greater rate than using extreme measures for extreme circumstances.

I agree with Rich. I have no problem with the equipment that many police units have. I have no problem with the preparation and training that these units must have to properly use the tools. My problem stems from the idea that because we have these tools, we must use them to justify the necessity. That idea doesn't always originate with the Police themselves. Knowing some of the politics behind such actions, I place the blame squarely on the individual City and County Fathers. They are the ones that hold the purse strings and demand justification for funding.

However...

Real justification comes when that one time situation warrants the use. Then the training, the preparation, all come together and the reasons for such funding pay off in a big way.
 
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