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Does SWAT Need to Be Explained?
Written by Ed Sanow
I get frustrated with the educational sessions at chief’s conferences on SWAT. The attendees are treated like kindergarten kids. “There are some vewy, vewy bad people out there. They won’t do what the nice police officers tell them. So, sometimes, those nice police officers need help from ‘special’ police officers.”
You got to be kidding me! Some 90% of agencies serving populations of more than 50,000 people, and 70% of agencies serving smaller populations have some kind of SWAT team. Yet, SWAT has to be explained like it is something new to policing?
When someone has risen to the rank of chief or sheriff, then SWAT has to be explained to them at a chief’s conference? Have we, as team leaders and team commanders, done that a bad job of explaining what SWAT is and does? As well as when a SWAT team could, or must, be used? Honestly? Yes.
When the local police beat reporter knows more about SWAT than the chief or sheriff, you have a problem. Combine that lack of operational knowledge with the slightest mistake during a SWAT operation and now you have a huge crisis as well as a disbanded tactical team.
SWAT teams, even the better ones, are going to make operations errors. The key, then, is getting everyone up the chain of command familiar with SWAT operations. That especially includes the PIO, who gets to talk to that crime reporter.
Team commanders must raise the profile of their teams. Stay active. Yes, I mean do warrant service and drug raids even if you have to poach the work. First, your team needs the training time under true callout conditions. If all your team does is train, but seldom deploy, you will end up training just to train. You need to train to fight. You already know that.
Second, make SWAT familiar to senior police staff. Everyone fears the unknown. Don’t let SWAT be that unknown. Make deploying SWAT something that is routine, not something only done after much hand-wringing. “Oh, no! You mean we have to call SWAT? Oh, I don’t know, I just don’t know. Really? Call SWAT? Really?”
Yes, you should have clear guidelines for activating the team. But how many times has the callout of a part-time team been delayed or denied when those callout criteria were met? We really do need to explain that SWAT is less of a threat than the people in the calls we are responding to—you know, those vewy, vewy bad people.
Part of the chief’s or sheriff’s fear of the unknown with SWAT is they truly may not know the capabilities—and the limitations—of their particular team. Sometimes we act as if we can do anything and everything. The chief might suspect differently.
In the immortal words of Inspector Harry Callahan, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” So must your SWAT team. Man-up now and draw the line. We can do barricaded gunman, but we can’t do hostage rescue. We can do bus assault, but we can’t rappel. We can do chemical agents, but we can’t do explosive entry. Whatever it may be, know what you can and can’t do.
Do only what you are excellent at doing. Don’t do what you have done once or twice in practice, fully-rested, fully-hydrated, in the middle of a nice sunny day with your full team on-hand. Know the difference. Know what you can do and then find a way to prove it to the administration.
So, do you request a meeting with senior staff and have a “show and tell” with all your cool gear? Perhaps have a few of them stop by the range on training day? The very best way to prove the capabilities of your team is to conduct an all-discipline, mock exercise. It needs to be realistic and relevant: active shooter, barricaded gunman—something that makes sense. Remember the goal is to convince the chief of your team’s capabilities. Inspire the chief’s confidence in the team. Educate the chief.
You don’t need to include Fire/EMS for the first few of these, but they eventually need to be included. However, you do need to include the entire chain of police command: dispatch, patrol, SWAT, negotiators, supervisors, the chief. Perhaps just a table-top exercise for the upper management, but they need to be somehow involved because that is the point. Also, the chief needs to be there during the after-action debrief.
You need to educate your chief. Don’t let the local press do it. Don’t force the chief to attend a class at a conference on it. You do it.
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