SWAT

Radley has an email response, in regards to Radley's WaPo article, from an actual SWAT team member stating the problems with every small locality having it's own SWAT team. It comes down to training and psychological tests. These small towns with SWAT team abuse Radley writes about ever more frequently don't spend any extra money getting these heavily armed thugs training. The municipalities don't even know how these hyped up guys can handle the power trip of "going through the door".

On a related note, I caught a minute of Dallas Swat on TV the other night. They were planning an assault on a house where a couple of people were cooking and selling rock (I love to use some drug slang). It looked like a pretty peaceful slightly lower middle class neighborhood until the flash grenades went off inside the house and 20 paramilitary troopers ran through the front door. The very next scene showed one of these SWAT guys deriding the drug dealer for grabbing his son and "using him as a shield". SWAT dude said that the raidee was shouting "I'm protecting my boy, I'm protecting my boy." To which the SWAT guy in all seriousness, in his retelling of the story, said "If he wanted to protect his boy he should have stood in the doorway with his hands up telling the SWAT team where his boy is." When exactly was he supposed to do this? After they threw in the stun grenade he was probably stunned. There were 20 SWAT guys in his living room by the time he could react rationally (assuming rational is standing in a doorway with your hands up after somebody has thrown a grenade through your window). The drug dealer's instinct was to grab his boy and protect him. I would have done the same thing, so would any member of that SWAT team. I don't think I'll be watching too much "Dallas SWAT" in the future, 5 minutes was too much.