SWAT at rescue/recovery in mine explosion

Y

Yoshi

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From a local newspaper :
[Three hours later, Hatfield told the families that "there had been a lack of communication, that what we were told was wrong and that only one survived," said John Groves, whose brother Jerry Groves was one of the trapped miners.

"There was no apology. There was no nothing. It was immediately out the door," said Nick Helms, son of miner Terry Helms.

Chaos broke out in the church and a fight started. About a dozen state troopers and a SWAT team were positioned along the road near the church because police were concerned about violence. A Red Cross volunteer, Tamila Swiger, told CNN people were breaking down and suffering panic attacks.] quote

The authorities after they made a big mistake call in SWAT... men armed with machine guns to hold over family members of victims killed in mine explosion.
I think that’s very insensitive and shows a little too much big brother
The regular officers would have been enough, they were already there.
 
It's possible SWAT was there to protect the families I guess. The original cause of explosion was still unknown at the time.

- Ohio uses coal to produce 90% of it's electricity.
- 99% of the coal used in that production comes from West Virginia and/or companies based in West Virginia. For an example of how important to the Eastern power grid the Ohio plants are you have to look no further than the "Blackout" of a couple years ago.
- Coal exports have been just about the only bright spot in the trade balance with China.
- After a disaster like this, the .gov will crawl into every nook/cranny/crevice of every mining compnay in the Appalachian region. The Appalachian region, while second in production, is first in production for export.

If I were a "terrorist", this sounds like an ideal high impact target. I believe I'll give the use of SWAT a pass on this one, despite what the story would lead one to believe. "Bombing" a mine, then bombing the stricken and grieveing realtives afterwards is a good fit for the terrorist method of doing things.
 
CNN people suffering panic attacks ??? Guilt feelings ? The media was very quick to report survivors and did so without confirming the story . Sadly the governor also did it , he should have made some calls first.Now CNN is covering the poor reporting as if they weren't a big part of the problem !!:rolleyes: BTW in NYC the Emergency Services Unit responds to all types of emergancies and is also the SWAT team .
 
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Given what happened I'd by far rather have SWAT with better / more training and greater numbers to keep the peace than have officers get overwhelmed and something really bad happen.

Of course that is if there have to be police there, I can understand that accidents happen, that may or may not be management's fault, the survior screw up, it's duration and lack of any care on part of the company makes me think that if management got stomped it might not have been the worst thing that has ever happened in the course of human history.

Oh and CNN ought to be fined or censored by some professonal orginization as they played a huge role in this and need to have some ethics somewhere --- to me the reporters in most mass media have become worse than lawyers.
 
Can't blame the police for wanting to have SWAT at the scene any more than you can blame the networks for rushing to put out the story of the rescue.
 
Sounds like a perfect application of a special ops team. SWAT's S is for "SPECIAL" and an explosion, even a simple accident, is a great time to deploy the "SPECIAL" on scene.

We do this down here at my dept all the time. We have our SWAT team go out and do all sorts of stuff, some of which would seem overkill to regular people (non-leo) but sometimes its better to be safe than sorry.
 
Of course SWAT was called out....along with probably every available LEO, Firefighter and Paramedic.

If it were your family, would you rather they'd have called out the Girl Scouts?
Rich
 
(Now that my rage over the media's round-the-clock finger-pointing and blame-shifting has died down, I can approach this topic rationally.)

Should SWAT have been at the scene? Sure, they are specialized resources who should be readily available if needed. Besides being SWAT, they are also LEOs who can perform the full range of law enforcement duties.

My only reservation would be about appearances and utilization. If they were performing basic tasks like directing traffic and so forth, I would think it would have been appropriate to leave most of their heavy gear in their cars/van. If they were doing mundane tasks in full riot gear, I would have a suspicion that someone wanted to play dress-up.
 
[QUOTBut it's better to have it and not need it than the other way around.
E][/QUOTE]

I disagree totally. This was a huge mistake by police. SWAT teams are only tough and brave when they face innocent women and children. This was police grandstanding at its worse. Disgraceful! The families of the miners were victimized twice. SWATs do so much to hot dog and bully helpless people and damage the trust the citizenry have for them. When all trust is gone then what do Police have? The brave and the fearless died in the mine that day while the Police shamed themselves up above.
 
Zen-
Let's be reasonable.

Did the police know what was going on was, in fact, a mine disaster and not an act of terrorism?

If it had been the latter and the tactic of second round assaults on Emergency Crews and onlookers had been staged, would you not be blaming the cops for not being on scene in force?

Abuse is abuse. Preparation is preparation. Did the LEO's engage in a single action of abuse? I think not.
Rich
 
Zen-
Let's be reasonable.

Did the police know what was going on was, in fact, a mine disaster and not an act of terrorism?

If it had been the latter and the tactic of second round assaults on Emergency Crews and onlookers had been staged, would you not be blaming the cops for not being on scene in force?
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Yea you're right. It could have been a terrorists attack. Or maybe a bus wreck. Perhaps OJ was in town? Come to think of it, I don't think it was a mine disaster at all. I think it was a Flu epidemic and somebody misunderstood and called the SWAT instead of the World Health Organization.
 
Well, if you can't answer a reasonable question, there's always adolescent sarcasm.
Thanks for the cogent insight.
Rich
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Nah nah pal. Dont turn things around. You are the one who claimed it was a terror attack. You can't get sillier than that.
 
zen900 said:
SWAT teams are only tough and brave when they face innocent women and children. This was police grandstanding at its worse. Disgraceful!
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zen900 said:
I don't think it was a mine disaster at all. I think it was a Flu epidemic and somebody misunderstood and called the SWAT instead of the World Health Organization.
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If you're not interested in participating in an intelligent discussion, please refrain from posting further on this subject. If, however, you have a reason for your apparent irrational fear and hatred of SWAT officers I would appreciate it if you would just say it outright, rather than resorting to the weak tactic of sarcasm. It's not hiding the fact that you have not put forth any logical reason for SWAT to have been left behind.
 
Zen900

I have friends less than 50 miles from there and I know a lot of the folks around them. They are a very tight-knit bunch that support each other in times of trouble. In order for that SWAT team to have jurisdiction, they had to belong to a local agency. So did you stop to think that, most probably, the SWAT officers have friends and relatives working the mines? Just maybe, there was a little concern on their part as well?

Duty demanded that they be there, but they were there with a velvet hand.
 
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