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GAO report on government duplication and waste
Article here. It brought to mind what a local prosecutor suggested, decades ago. He suggested that was enormous duplication of SWAT teams. FBI has multiple, local based, SWAT teams. BATF has its equivalent, Special Reaction Teams. IRS, I'm told, has them. Agriculture, of all things, has at least one, with helicopter. (I know because a friend was a Justice of the Peace and signed off on some search warrants for food stamp fraud, and was astounded to find these perfectly ordinary warrants were being executed by SWAT teams with the helo hovering overhead. He asked a fellow what was the helo doing, it couldn't land with all the electrical lines around, were the men aboard going to rappel down? The answer was no, after the raid was over it'd go back to the airport. We just brought it along because some Congressional types had pointed out we'd never used it and why did we need it?
My prosecutor friend observed, yes, LE needs a SWAT team trained in its special skills. But why does each agency and local department need a separate one? Maybe IRS agents need to know tax law, and ATF firearms law, and Agriculture how you run the food stamp program, but why not just one SWAT team for all agencies (or one per region), and a single local one for all localities in the area?
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Without addressing the very serious problem of militarizing law enforcement, I think I understand why the duplication:
When you hand off to a SWAT team, as I understand it, you lose control of the situation. The SWAT commander really does need to be -- all together now -- in command once his team is called in, and if he is outside your chain of command, you may not be able to decide even go/no-go, much less attempt to finesse the situation.
Which all strikes me as a good reason not to call in SWAT period except in very drastic situations.
Aside from the serious question posed about the need for such team in the first place, you miss the point of all these departments/agencies having them:
So they can spend taxpayer dollars, on really cool toys that they get to play with. It's ego gratification on many levels: Being a 'SWAT COP' in some Mayberry department (Chino Valley, Az?), having superultrahypertacikewl clothes (not the regular pogue uniform), time off from the boring work of police work (because they have to PT/Shoot/practice, etc), then, of course since the departments lose FTE positions, they have to hire more people (sworn and support)....
And of course from time to time the government gives these podunk departments money for the manpower/toys...lately they justify in with 'Homeland Security'.
Need? Follow the money.
Flight-ER-Doc has it right the government for years has been pushing money onto the local departments to get heavy weapons and swat type stuff down at the lowest level. One, it puts dollars at the local level and the Feds make sure that they know where they got it from - the local congress critters are a major conduit. Two, the local people see this as their congress critter doing something for them, at least until the that swat team crashes into the wrong house to serve a jay-walking warrant and kills the family dog or a person.
Cops are not the military and should not be. They should be local people you see on the street and say hello to. The cops in my town have all that tactical pants and 9mm with extra mags and so on. they are prepared, in theory, for the Mexican drug cartel wars and it is a sleepy middle class town of 15,000 in North Jersey.
Is every body aware that the Department of Education purchased some short 14-inch Remington shotguns last year. Maybe they have a SWAT team.
Don't cut class.
From the other side, not disagreeing about SWAT teams, but tactical uniforms. The standard uniform is impractical and dangerous. The tactical uniform solves the problems. What are the issues with standard uniforms:
1. Back injuries. With the standard uniform all the equipment needs to be worn on the belt. This is radios, guns, pepper spray, extra mags, taser, handcuffs, baton, etc. This put pressure on the lower back causing back injuries. (Yes, this is real. Lower back injuries are common for cops.) The tactical pants allow some equipment, such as a thigh holster, to take much of the weight off the belt.
2. Heat. Traditional uniforms are made of wool, tactical are made of cotton. Think 100+ temp and 75% humidity. Do you want to wear wool? Also the wool uniforms need to be dry cleaned. Cotton can be washed at home.
So, fix the problem by changing the duty uniform to poplin or something.
And given the choice, I would wear lightweight wool in high temps and humidity before polyester (and I've done both, in the military).
Ron:
what you said is a perfect example. Growing up in NYC a cop had a gun, handcuffs and a most of the time a flashlight. Now they are a walking weapons depot. Change back to being a cop and the need for most, if not all, of that disappears
I live in a small community in SW Missouri and our county partners with other counties to have a drug task force, each department provides an officer and the cost is spread over several counties. Likewise the police department in town partners with the sheriff's office. The city fire department has mutual aid agreements with just about all of the volunteer fire departments in the county.
We don't get a whole lot of SWAT type equipment, although the fire department did get a Gator 4wd and our ambulance district got a boat for water rescues.
The attitude of most LEOs and other emergency services tends to be the old fashioned "Fix it up and use it out, make it do or do without." Probably out of necessity.
Rich, that's just silly. If you look closely, cops aren't a walking weapons depot. Most of what has changed since you grew up is the addition of lawsuits, and therefore less-lethal weapons. They've added OC spray, tasers, batons of various types, cell phones, radios, CPR gloves and masks, etc. Mace and tasers are hardly militant weapons.
If a cop is involved in a shooter scenario, of course you want him to have extra magazines. You'll probably be at home anyway, so you won't be able to arrive with your own sidearm to assist.
And "tactical pants" just means it has some extra pockets. Otherwise made out of whatever material you like.
Stunning...the militarization of Government against it's own folks.
And you're absolutely right.if they need access to one at all, they need only one. Maybe the FBI should have one regional team, for all Federal crimes, but only for cases where there's a clear and present danger of violent response.
IRS and Agricultrure? No way.
Too many times it's an agency status symbol, obviously...like a local sheriff having an armored assault vehicle, it's ridiculous on the face of it.
Food Stamp fraud SWAT team? If I were a JP asked to sign that one I'd refuse...no reason the local Sheriff or PD couldn't serve that warrant, and definitely no reason for a helo assault standing by to descend on a welfare cheat...
Sickening and disgusting.