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'SWAT' ('Special Weapons And Tactics') is a specialized paramilitary tactical unit in many American police departments, which is trained to perform dangerous operations. These can include serving high-risk arrest warrants, performing hostage rescue and/or armed intervention, preventing terrorist attacks, and engaging heavily-armed criminals. SWAT teams are equipped with specialized firearms including submachine guns, shotguns, carbines, riot control agents, stun grenades, and high-powered rifles for marksmen (snipers). They often have specialized equipment including heavy body armor, entry tools, armored vehicles, steel reinforced boots and night vision optics.

Contents

History

SWAT duties

Organization

Training

SWAT equipment

Clothing and Tools

Weapons

Vehicles

Recon

SWAT in popular culture

Controversies

SWAT and other units in the United States

Similar units outside the United States

See also

References

External links

History

William E. Fairbairn, and the Shanghai Municipal Police (S.M.P.) originally pioneered the SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) concept in the 1920's. While many know about Fairbairn's work with Special Forces units in World War II he was primarily a police officer who used his knowledge of close combat martial arts to fight the war on crime. The Shanghai Municipal Police established the Reserve Unit under Fairbairn's command to deal with riots, urban guerrillas, and terrorists in Shanghai.
During the 1920's Shanghai was alleged to be one of the most dangerous cities in the world. The Green Gang, a secret society similar to the Sicilian mafia controlled all the crime in the coastal city. They were brutal enforcers who had no compunction about killing civilians or police officers. Murders became such a common occurrence that they stopped being front page of the news, and kidnapping for profit became its own industry. Rioters even attacked a police station, but after lethal force was used the Shanghai Municipal Council ordered the police force to improve how they handled street fights.
The new unit was called the Reserve Unit or Riot Squad, because it was held in reserve until high risk incident occurred. Over its thirty year history the new unit would be the first group to use equipment like automatic weapons, carbines, and high-powered rifles.
They were also the first to use chemical agents, body armor, and forcible entry tools and even used Harley-Davidson motorcycles with machine guns mounted on the sidecars.
As a training aid Fairbairn built a model city named "Wee-Burg," so he could better plan dangerous operations in built-up areas. Reserve officer Eric Anthony Sykes who worked as an agent for Remington and Colt in China would form the first counter-sniper teams for urban warfare. And again, Fairbairn as an expert in several martial arts, taught his men defendu, a jujutsu-based hand-to-hand combat technique that proved so effective it would eventually be taught to every member of the police force.
The first weapons and tactics unit was developed by the S.M.P., and the lessons learned in bloody gun battles and brutal street fights helped countless police officers and soldiers in WWII and beyond.
While military units have been used to quell riots for millenia, the first recorded implementation of civilian SWAT in the United States was employed by the Delano Police Department when, in 1965, they followed Faribairn’s in response to the demonstrations revolving around the UFW (United Farm Workers Union) and their activities in and around the farming community of Delano, California on the border between Kern and Tulare Counties in the great San Joaquin Valley, far north of Los Angeles. Caesar Chavez' United Farm Workers were staging numerous demonstrations in Delano, both at cold storage facilities and in front of non-supportive farm worker's homes on their sidewalks and city streets. Delano PD answered the issues that arose by forming the first-ever U.S. civilian units using special tactics and weapons to quell the union's activities. Television news stations and print media carried live and delayed reportage of these events across the nation. ^[1]
Having seen the news broadcasts of the riots and police controls employed by the Delano PD, personnel from the LAPD, contacted Delano PD and inquired about the program. One officer obtained permission to observe Delano PD's, special weapons and tactics in action, and afterwards took what he'd learned back to Los Angeles where his knowledge was used and expanded on to form their first SWAT unit.

LAPD Officer John Nelson, came up with the idea to form a specially trained and equipped unit inside the LAPD, intended to respond to and manage critical situations involving shootings while minimizing police casualties. Then Inspector, and later Chief of Police, Daryl Gates approved his idea, and he formed a small select group of volunteer officers. This first SWAT unit was initially constituted with fifteen teams of four men each, for a total staff of sixty. These officers were given special status and benefits. They were required to attend special monthly training. This unit also served as a security unit for police facilities during civil unrest. The LAPD SWAT units were organized as "D Platoon" in the Metro division.^[2]
In Gates’ autobiography, ''Chief: My Life in the LAPD'' (Bantam Books, 1992), he explained that he neither developed SWAT tactics nor its distinctive equipment, and that he wanted to name the platoon “Special Weapons Assault Team”. However, that name was turned down by his boss, then-deputy police chief Ed Davis. Gates wrote that he supported the concept, tried to empower his people to develop the concept, and lent them moral support.^[2] Thus, Daryl Gates’ support was instrumental in the development of SWAT within the LAPD, but not to the creation or invention of SWAT per se.
A report issued by the Los Angeles Police Department, following a shootout with the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974, offers one of the few firsthand accounts by the department regarding SWAT history, operations, and organization.^[4]
On page 100 of the report, the Department cites four trends which prompted the development of SWAT. This includes riots such as the Watts Riots which in the 1960s forced police departments into tactical situations for which they were ill-prepared, the emergence of snipers as a challenge to civil order, the appearance of the political assassin, and the threat of urban guerrilla warfare by militant groups. “The unpredictability of the sniper and his anticipation of normal police response increases the chances of death or injury to officers. To commit conventionally trained officers to a confrontation with a guerilla-trained militant group would likely result in a high number of casualties among the officers and the escape of the guerillas.” To deal with these under conditions of urban violence, the LAPD formed SWAT, notes the report.
The report states on page 109, “The purpose of SWAT is to provide protection, support, security, firepower, and rescue to police operations in high personal risk situations where specialized tactics are necessary to minimize casualties.”
Today special weapons and tactics units are ubiquitous, and even patrol officers are being trained and equipped so they can immediately respond to threats.

SWAT duties

SWAT duties include:

★ Protecting emergency personnel against snipers;

★ Providing high-ground and perimeter security against snipers for visiting dignitaries;

★ Providing controlled assault firepower in certain non-riot situations, e.g., barricaded suspects;

★ Rescuing officers and citizens captured or endangered by gunfire

★ Neutralizing guerilla or terrorist operations.

★ Catching people that could be involved in undercover work.

★ resolve high-risk situations with a minimum loss of life, injury or property damage,

★ resolve situations involving barricaded subjects, ''(see specifically HBT )''

★ stabilize situations involving high-risk suicidal subjects,

★ provide assistance on drug raids, arrest warrants and search warrants,

★ provide additional security at special events,
The first significant deployment of LAPD's SWAT unit was on December 9, 1969, in a four-hour confrontation with members of the Black Panthers. The Panthers finally surrendered, with only three Panthers and three officers being injured. By 1974, there was a general acceptance of SWAT as a resource for the city and county of Los Angeles.
On the afternoon of May 17, 1974, elements of a group which called itself the "Symbionese Liberation Army" (SLA), a group of heavily-armed leftists, barricaded themselves in a residence on East 54th Street at Compton Avenue. Coverage of the siege was broadcast to millions via television and radio and featured in the world press for days after. Negotiations were opened with the barricaded suspects on numerous occasions, both prior to and after the introduction of tear gas. Police units did not fire until the SLA had fired several volleys of semi-automatic and fully automatic gunfire at them. In spite of the 3,772 rounds fired by the SLA, no uninvolved citizens or police officers sustained injury from gunfire.
During the gun battle, a fire erupted inside the residence. The cause of the fire is officially unknown, although police sources speculated that an errant round ignited one of the suspects' Molotov cocktails. Others suspect that the repeated use of tear gas grenades, which function by burning chemicals at high temperatures, started the structure fire. All six of the suspects suffered multiple gunshot wounds and perished in the ensuing blaze.

By the time of the SLA shoot-out, SWAT teams had reorganized into six 10-man teams, each team consisting of two five-man units, called elements. An element consisted of an element leader, two assaulters, a scout, and a rear-guard. The normal complement of weapons was a high-power anti-sniper rifle (apparently a .243-caliber bolt-action, judging from the ordnance expended by officers at the shootout), two .223-caliber semi-automatic rifles, and two shotguns. SWAT officers also carried their service revolvers in shoulder holsters. The normal gear issued them included a first aid kit, gloves, and a gas mask. In fact it was a change just to have police armed with semi-automatic rifles, at a time when officers were usually issued six-shot revolvers and shotguns. The encounter with the heavily-armed Symbionese Liberation Army, however, sparked a trend towards SWAT teams being issued body armor and fully automatic weapons of various types.
The Columbine High School massacre in 1999 was another seminal event in SWAT tactics and police response. As noted in an article in the Christian Science Monitor, “[i]nstead of being taught to wait for the SWAT team to arrive, street officers are receiving the training and weaponry to take immediate action during incidents that clearly involve suspects' use of deadly force.” ^[5]
The article further reported that street officers were increasingly being armed with rifles, and issued heavy body armor and ballistic helmets, items traditionally associated with SWAT units. The idea is to train and equip street officers to make a rapid response to so-called active-shooter situations. In these situations, it was no longer acceptable to simply set up a perimeter and wait for SWAT.
As an example, in the policy and procedure manual of the Minneapolis, Minnesota, Police Department, it is stated, "MPD personnel shall remain cognizant of the fact that in many active shooter incidents, innocent lives are lost within the first few minutes of the incident. In some situations, this dictates the need to rapidly assess the situation and act quickly in order to save lives." ^[6]
With this shift in police response, SWAT units remain in demand for their traditional roles as hostage rescue, counter-terrorist operations, and serving high-risk warrants.

Organization

The relative infrequency of SWAT call-outs means these expensively-trained and equipped officers can not be left to sit around, waiting for an emergency. In many departments the officers are normally deployed to regular duties (such as the Manteca Police Department in California), but are available for SWAT calls via pagers, cell phones or radio transceivers. Even in the larger police agencies, such as the Los Angeles PD, SWAT personnel would normally be seen in crime suppression roles - specialized and more dangerous than regular patrol, perhaps, but the officers wouldn’t be carrying their distinctive armor and weapons.
By illustration, the LAPD’s website shows that in 2003, their SWAT units were activated 255 times, for 133 SWAT calls and 122 times to serve high-risk warrants. This would seem to average to about one call every other day, but considering the 24-hour a day availability of police work, this means a lot of time between calls.
The New York Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit is one of the few civilian police special-response units that operate autonomously 24 hours a day. However, this unit also provides a wide range of services, including rescue and search functions normally handled by fire departments or other agencies.
The need to summon widely-dispersed personnel, then equip and brief them, makes for a long lag between the initial emergency and actual SWAT deployment on the ground. The problems of delayed police response at the 1999 Columbine High School massacre has led to changes in police response, mainly rapid deployment of line officers to deal with an active shooter, rather than setting up a perimeter and waiting for SWAT to arrive.

Training

SWAT officers are selected from volunteers within their law enforcement organization. Depending on the department's policy, officers generally have to serve a minimum tenure within the department before being able to apply for a specialist section such as SWAT. This tenure requirement is based on the fact that SWAT officers are still law enforcement officers and must have a thorough knowledge of department policies and procedures.
SWAT applicants undergo rigorous selection and training, similar to the training some special operations units in the military receive. Applicants must pass stringent physical agility, written, oral, and psychological testing to ensure they are not only fit enough but also psychologically suited for tactical operations.
In addition, applicants must successfully pass a stringent background investigation and job performance review. Emphasis is placed on physical fitness so an officer will be able to withstand the rigors of tactical operations. After an officer has been selected, the potential member must undertake and pass numerous specialist courses that will make him or her a fully qualified SWAT operator. Officers are trained in marksmanship for the development of accurate shooting skills, although the use of firearms is considered a last resort in law enforcement. Other training that could be given to potential members includes training in explosives, sniper-training, first-aid, negotiation, handling K9 units, abseiling (rappelling) and roping techniques and the use of specialized weapons and equipment. They are also trained specifically in the handling and use of special ammunition such as bean bags, flash bang grenades, Tasers, and the use of crowd control methods, and special less-lethal munitions. Of primary importance is close-quarters defensive tactics training, as this will be the primary mission upon becoming a full-fledged SWAT officer.

SWAT equipment

SWAT teams use equipment designed for a variety of specialist situations including close quarters combat (CQC) in an urban environment. The particular pieces of equipment vary from unit to unit, but there are some consistent trends in what they wear and use.

Clothing and Tools

Individual clothing and equipment usually consists of fire-resistant Nomex/Teijinconex coveralls or flightsuits, or BDUs (battle dress uniform), if need be, a body armor vest with Aramid or HMPE, an outer tactical load bearing vest (Omega style vest, LBV, or Plate Carrier [picture to right: Omega vests are being used]) for carrying ammunition and specialist gear and equipment, Nomex or other tactical gloves, balaclava or protective face covering (not always), protective eye goggles, Twaron/Kevlar helmet (PASGT) and/or gas mask, flashlight (usually a Surefire or similar brand), combat steel reinforced boots, flexi-cuffs, and thigh ammo/utility pouches and/or holsters. They often use drop leg holsters, while some officers prefer hip mounted holsters.

Weapons

While a wide variety of weapons are used by SWAT teams, the most common weapons include submachine guns, carbines, assault rifles, shotguns, and sniper rifles.
Tactical aids include flashbang, Stinger and tear gas grenades.
Semi-automatic handguns are the most popular sidearms. Examples may include, but are not limited to: Glock series, M1911 pistol series, Sig Sauer series (especially the Sig P226 and Sig P228) Berretta M9 series, and H&K USP series.
Popular submachine guns used by SWAT teams include the 9 mm Heckler & Koch MP5 and 10 mm MP5/10 (used by the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team and by United States Capitol Police), with or without suppressors, and, to a lesser degree, Mac-10s. The H&K UMP is replacing the MP5 more and more due to its higher calibre. Other common SMGs (sub machine guns) are the FN P90 and the H&K MP5/10 (see H&K MP5 variants), which is a MP5 with a larger calibre round.
''Some'' of the shot guns used are the Benelli M3, SPAS-12, and the M1100 shot gun.
Common rifles include the M4 Carbine; such carbines or compact assault rifles are favoured since they retain the penetration power of their full-sized cousins but are lighter and easier to handle to CQB. The Colt M16A2 is not too commonly used, but can be found used by Marksmen or SWAT officers when a longer ranged weapon is needed. The H&K G3 series is also favored among Marksmen or snipers, as well as the M14. Many different variants of bolt action rifles have been seen as well being used by SWAT.
To breach doors quickly, battering rams, shotguns, or explosive charges can be used to break the lock or hinges, or even demolish the door frame itself. SWAT teams also use many less-lethal munitions and weapons. These include tasers, pepper spray canisters, shotguns loaded with bean bag rounds, and Pepperball guns. Pepperball guns are essentially paintball markers loaded with balls containing Oleoresin Capsicum ("pepper spray").

Vehicles

Well-funded SWAT units may also employ armored SWAT vans for insertion, maneuvering, or during tactical operations such as the rescue of civilians/officers pinned down by gunfire. Helicopters may be used to provide aerial reconnaissance or even insertion via rappelling or fast-roping. To avoid detection by suspects during insertion in urban environments, SWAT units may also use modified buses, vans, trucks, or other seemingly normal vehicles.

Recon

For tactical reconnaissance purposes, a team may be equipped with binoculars, fiber optic cameras, thermographic cameras, or a variety of audio or video surveillance equipment. In nighttime or low-light operations, SWAT units may be equipped with night-vision goggles. Mirrors on extension poles, for looking around corners while not putting an officer directly in the line of fire, are amongst some of the more unusual and ad-hoc device used by teams to deal with unique situations.

SWAT in popular culture

This kind of police unit quickly became well known with the premiere of the short-lived but notorious television series ''S.W.A.T.'' in the 1970s. The show was panned as being overly violent and unrealistic, though its considered mild by today's standards, with the characters regularly undergoing missions that usually happen only once in a lifetime for actual teams. It was cancelled in the later episodes of the series, due to the violence of the program.
The SWAT Series of computer games by Sierra Entertainment and developed by Vivendi Universal and Irrational Games started off as an interactive movie followup of the ''Police Quest'' series which was narrated by retired Chief Daryl Gates, and was continued as a real-time strategy game and two first person shooters in the vein of ''Rainbow Six''. All but one featured endorsements by the LAPD.
During the 1990s, there was also a cartoon TV show called ''.
In 2003, the movie ''S.W.A.T.'' starring Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell was released in theaters as an update of the TV series.
In 2005, a television show debuted on A&E entitled Dallas SWAT, documenting the personal and professional lives of SWAT officers of the Dallas, Texas Police Department. The television show is now being shown on Court TV and in 2006 A&E is debuting both Kansas City and Detroit SWAT.
The British comic ''Viz'' once ran a spoof strip called SWANT (Special Weapons And No Tactics) involving a disastrous SWAT team.
A SWAT unit is featured at the end of the movie ''The Blues Brothers'' (1980), involved in the arrest of Jake and Elwood Blues, along with state troopers, the military, the fire brigade, the mounted police, the Chicago Police Department, etc. They pursue the brothers in the Cook County Building, leading the pursuit by all the armed forces throughout the building stairwells. The supposed irony of the sequence is that one of the missions of the SWAT teams are to arrest armed, dangerous criminals while the Blues brothers carry no weapons at all and are but petty criminal offenders.
Up to and including the 1980s, movies that featured SWAT units (such as the Die Hard series) portrayed them as carrying M16 Rifles and wearing black armour and clothing, however they did not have protective helmets, goggles, or visors. By the 1990s, SWAT officers were typically depicted in full protection with helmets and goggles/visors, balaclava, and carrying MP5 submachine guns, with the occasional member carrying a rifle/carbine or shotgun. Since the 2000s, movies less regularly show SWAT wearing balaclava (such as Swordfish and SWAT 2003), as it would have made them completely anonymous.

Controversies

The use of SWAT teams in non-emergency situations has been criticized.^[7] In 2006, a SWAT team served a warrant on Salvatore Culosi, a 37-year old optometrist in the Fair Oaks section of Fairfax County, Virginia, a suburb of Washington D.C., who was accused of sports gambling; the attempted arrest ended with his accidental death.^[8] The officer who was responsible, Deval V. Bullock, was suspended for three weeks without pay.^[9] One notable critic is Radley Balko, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, author of ''Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America''.^[10] The Salvatore Culosi incident is but one of several hundred botched SWAT raids recorded by the CATO Institute in its Google Maps mashup displaying the locations of such incidents across the USA.^[11] (Care should be taken when enterpreting the results of this Mashup, as the CATO Institute is admittedly of the libertarian point of view that all persons are the absolute owners of their own lives, and should be free to do whatever they wish with their persons or property. This viewpoint ''may'' create a bias in the dataset.)

SWAT and other units in the United States

Main articles: List of Special Response Units in the United States

Though initially confined to metropolitan cities, today virtually every city with a police force in excess of a handful of officers has a paramilitary tactical unit. A variety of abbreviations and acronyms are used for these organizations, which operate at federal, state, and local levels. Most known examples are:

★ Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Special Response Teams (SRT)

★ Drug Enforcement Administration Mobile Enforcement Teams (MET). In early 2007, DEA Administrator Karen Tandy ordered the dissolution of all MET teams and reassigned all of their personnel. This left DEA as the only major federal law enforcement agency which has no tactical team program.

★ Federal Bureau of Investigation Hostage Rescue Team (HRT)

★ Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Weapons and Tactics Teams

★ Federal Bureau of Prisons Special Operations and Response Teams (SORT)

★ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Special Response Teams

★ United States Department of Energy Office of Safety and Security (OSS) Special Response Teams (SRT)

★ United States Department of Energy Special Response Force (SRF)

★ United States Marshals Service Special Operations Group (SOG) [1]

★ Felony Investigative Assistance Team SWAT Unit, DuPage County, IL

★ United States Army Military Police Corps Military Police Special Reaction Team (SRT)

★ United States Marine Corps Military Police Special Reaction Team (SRT)

★ United States Air Force Security Forces Emergency Services Team (EST)

Similar units outside the United States

;North America

★ ''Emergency Response Team'' (ERT), Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada

★ ''Emergency Task Force'' (ETF), Toronto Police Service, Canada

★ Tactical Intervention Group (in French Groupe tactique d'intervention), Service de police de la Ville de Montreal, Canada
;South America

★ ''Brigada Especial Operativa Halcón'', Argentina

★ ''GEOF'', Grupo Especial de Operaciones Federales, Argentina

★ ''BOPE'', Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais, Brazil

★ ''GOPE'', Grupo de Operaciones Policiales Especiales, Chile
;Europe

★ ''Beredskapstroppen'' (Delta), police response unit, Norway

★ ''Berkut'', Ukraine

★ ''Bijzondere Bijstands Eenheid'' (BBE), Netherlands

★ ''Útvar rychlého nasazení'' (URNA), Czech republic

★ ''EKO Cobra'', Austria

★ ''Emergency Response Unit'' (ERU), Garda Síochána, Ireland

★ ''Federal Police Special Units'', Belgian Police, Belgium

★ ''GIGN''/''EPIGN, Gendarmerie Nationale'', France

★ ''Grupo Especial de Operaciones'' (GEO), Special Group of Operations, Spain

★ ''Grupo de Operações Especiais'' (GOE), (Special Operations Group), Portugal

★ ''Gruppo di Intervento Speciale'' (GIS), Carabinieri, Italy

★ GSG 9, ''Bundespolizei'', Germany

★ ''Nationella insatsstyrkan'', National Task Force (NI), Sweden

★ ''Nucleo Operativo Centrale di Sicurezza'' (NOCS), Polizia di Stato, Italy

★ ''Osasto Karhu'', Bear Force or Bear Group, Finland

★ ''Politiets Aktionsstyrke'' (AKS), Denmark

★ ''SOBR'', Ministry of the Interior (MVD), Russia

★ ''OMON'', Ministry of the Interior (MVD), Russia

★ ''SAJ (Special Anti-terrorist Unit)'',Ministry of the Interior(MUP),Serbia

★ ''PTJ (Anti-terror unit)'',Ministry of the Interior(MUP),Serbia

★ ''UBPOK'',Ministry of the Interior(MUP),Serbia

★ ''CO19'', Metropolitan Police, ''SO19'', All Other Forces, United Kingdom

★ ''Spezialeinsatzkommando'' (SEK), ''Landespolizei'', Germany

★ ''Víkingasveitin'', Iceland

★ ''Zentrale Unterstützungsgruppe Zoll'' (Central Customs Support Group, ZUZ) ''Zollkriminalamt'', Germany
;Middle East

★ ''YAMAM'', Israel
;Africa

★ ''SAPS Taskforce (Taakmag)'' (SAPS STF), South Africa
;Asia/Pacific

★ ''Detachment 88'', Republic of Indonesian Police (POLRI), Indonesia

★ ''Pasukan Gerakan Khas'' (PGK), Royal Malaysian Police, Malaysia

★ ''Special Assault Team'' (SAT), National Police Agency, Japan

★ ''Special Tactics and Rescue'' (STAR), Singapore

★ ''Special Duties Unit'' (SDU), Hong Kong Police

★ ''Arintharat 26'', Royal Thai Police, Thailand
;Australasia (Oceania)

★ ''Armed Offenders Squad'' (AOS), New Zealand

★ ''Special Operations Group'' (SOG), Victoria Police (Victoria, Australia)

★ ''State Protection Group'' (SPG), New South Wales, Australia

★ ''Tactical Response Group'' (TRG), Western Australia Police (WAPOL), Western Australia, Australia

See also

★ SWAT World Challenge

★ Metropolitan Nashville Police SWAT

References

1. Community Response Unit
2. Development of SWAT
3. Development of SWAT
4. Report following the SLA Shoot-out (PDF)
5. Report followong the Columbine High School Massacre
6. Policy & Procedure Manual
7. Steve Macko, "SWAT: Is it being used too much?", Emergency Response and Research Institute, July 15, 1997
8. Tom Jackman, "Va. Officer Might Be Suspended For Fatality", ''Washington Post'', November 25, 2006
9. "A Tragedy of Errors", ''Washington Post'', November 25, 2006
10. Radley Balko, "In Virginia, the Death Penalty for Gambling", ''Fox News'', May 1, 2006
11. http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

External links

★ SWAT USA Court TV program that broadcasts real SWAT video.

★ Cato Institute Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America