What troubles me about that is the simultaneous use of SWAT and non-SWAT equipment. In any situation I can imagine, either the equipment is overkill or there shouldn't be anyone without it anywhere nearby.
It started when someone shot and wounded a couple, then two people fired at the shooter, then there was a chase and shots exchanged and a man sitting on a porch was hit. Responding officers kept cutting each other off on their radios as they reported other gunfire in the area late Sunday night and early Monday morning.
Then the heavy equipment rolled in: A helicopter and SUVs packed with lockers of rifles. SWAT teams in green coveralls patrolled the streets with uniformed officers.
It was just one of dozens of shooting scenes across Chicago over the long Fourth of July weekend. In all, at least 82 people were shot, 14 of them fatally, since Thursday afternoon when two woman were shot as they sat outside a two-flat within a block of Garfield Park.
Five of the people were shot by police over 36 hours on Friday and Saturday, including two boys 14 and 16 who were killed when they allegedly refused to drop their guns.
Many of the long weekend's shootings were on the South Side, clustered in the Englewood, Roseland, Gresham and West Pullman neighborhoods that rank among the most violent in the city.
I think this is something to look at for 2 reasons.
1) SWAT officers being tasked for what is basically patrol duty.
2) Having them do that doesn't seem all the excessive when you look at the weekend overall. Those neighborhoods are only about 12 square miles of space. The rule of thumb for visiting Chicago is if the streets have numbers, gtfo and these areas are the reason why.
I think it's totally reasonable to go into a situation where you know there are armed, violent people with the protection offered by an armored vehicle. if the police are encountering that scenario often enough in a neighborhood, it makes sense to have that kind of equipment on hand.
The issue is that the much vaunted Special Weapons & Tactics are good at dealing with specific crimes / criminals, not the overall issue of crime. Going into a poor neighborhood in Chicago or Detroit and shooting gang members will put an end to an ongoing killing spree (something nobody would object to), but stomping that boot heel as part of a War on [X] is not going to make the neighborhood a better place.
I can see SWAT officers going out in normal equipment (AKA no armor, not carrying anything heavier than a pistol or baton for weaponry, etc) to add patrol manpower - that seems reasonable on the surface.
Of course, if they've never been trained for it, something is horribly wrong with the system - you simply don't have 24/7 crises that require breaking out SWAT - they have to be doing something else. Maybe they should be doing desk work to free those officers up for patrols, if you don't trust SWAT on the street.
But frankly, even in the event of an active shooter, it's not necessarily the time to bring in SWAT - your ordinary patrol officers with sidearms are still sufficient force for a couple of armed criminals. It's only when you're dealing with heavily-armed/armored criminals, or situations that demand overwhelming force be brought to bear (mass shootings, hostage situations, etc.) that SWAT is called for. It just seems like risk-aversion in a way - shifting SWAT to handle more and more cases that could be handled (admittedly, with somewhat more risk of injury) by ordinary patrol officers.
Considering the widespread violence this past weekend in Chicago, I don't think it's unreasonable that SWAT manpower was called in to bolster the overwhelmed and inadequate (normal) police presence.
I would assume that throughout the area the 'normal' police forces were fully utilized, and calling in other (normal) patrol officers would simply result in inadequate coverage elsewhere. In that sense, calling external reinforcements to act as patrol officers seems reasonable, and I would assume that the SWAT training a SWAT member has received is in addition to the normal police training - i.e. a SWAT team member can act as a normal officer as well.
Now, it doesn't seem to be a huge leap to acknowledge that there is some need / cases where SWAT is necessary (rapidly developing and violent situations), and that the violence in this area over this particular weekend is far more likely to develop into one of those situations than normal. If one of those situations develops, you don't want your SWAT team to be handicapped because they've left their equipment back at the station. So...going into the field fully equipped doesn't seem like too much of a stretch.
As for having SWAT and normal officers operating together...that's what they do and what they are trained to do. Regular police are expected to support SWAT operations, not clear out of the area and let SWAT 'do their thing'. If we accept that there are situations where SWAT is necessary, removing the support of the normal officers just increases the need for more SWAT members (to fill that support role) which takes us into the same spiral when there is a lack of regular resources.
You can also bring up the chilling effect a heavy police presence has on violence...and the psychological effect that the presence (or lack of) police has on the non-criminal members of a community that's plagued by violence.
There are many cases where it's difficult to justify the use of SWAT in the role they are being used, but I really think that Chicago over the past weekend is about as close as you're going to come (short of like Boston after the bombing) for 'reasonable' use.
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Clown ShoesGive me hay or give me death.Registered Userregular
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I think it's totally reasonable to go into a situation where you know there are armed, violent people with the protection offered by an armored vehicle. if the police are encountering that scenario often enough in a neighborhood, it makes sense to have that kind of equipment on hand.
The issue is that the much vaunted Special Weapons & Tactics are good at dealing with specific crimes / criminals, not the overall issue of crime. Going into a poor neighborhood in Chicago or Detroit and shooting gang members will put an end to an ongoing killing spree (something nobody would object to), but stomping that boot heel as part of a War on [X] is not going to make the neighborhood a better place.
Of course, if they've never been trained for it, something is horribly wrong with the system - you simply don't have 24/7 crises that require breaking out SWAT - they have to be doing something else. Maybe they should be doing desk work to free those officers up for patrols, if you don't trust SWAT on the street.
But frankly, even in the event of an active shooter, it's not necessarily the time to bring in SWAT - your ordinary patrol officers with sidearms are still sufficient force for a couple of armed criminals. It's only when you're dealing with heavily-armed/armored criminals, or situations that demand overwhelming force be brought to bear (mass shootings, hostage situations, etc.) that SWAT is called for. It just seems like risk-aversion in a way - shifting SWAT to handle more and more cases that could be handled (admittedly, with somewhat more risk of injury) by ordinary patrol officers.
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I would assume that throughout the area the 'normal' police forces were fully utilized, and calling in other (normal) patrol officers would simply result in inadequate coverage elsewhere. In that sense, calling external reinforcements to act as patrol officers seems reasonable, and I would assume that the SWAT training a SWAT member has received is in addition to the normal police training - i.e. a SWAT team member can act as a normal officer as well.
Now, it doesn't seem to be a huge leap to acknowledge that there is some need / cases where SWAT is necessary (rapidly developing and violent situations), and that the violence in this area over this particular weekend is far more likely to develop into one of those situations than normal. If one of those situations develops, you don't want your SWAT team to be handicapped because they've left their equipment back at the station. So...going into the field fully equipped doesn't seem like too much of a stretch.
As for having SWAT and normal officers operating together...that's what they do and what they are trained to do. Regular police are expected to support SWAT operations, not clear out of the area and let SWAT 'do their thing'. If we accept that there are situations where SWAT is necessary, removing the support of the normal officers just increases the need for more SWAT members (to fill that support role) which takes us into the same spiral when there is a lack of regular resources.
You can also bring up the chilling effect a heavy police presence has on violence...and the psychological effect that the presence (or lack of) police has on the non-criminal members of a community that's plagued by violence.
There are many cases where it's difficult to justify the use of SWAT in the role they are being used, but I really think that Chicago over the past weekend is about as close as you're going to come (short of like Boston after the bombing) for 'reasonable' use.
I would have though the SWAT team was something you applied to after you were already a police officer.
Me too but...
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