Comments by "Spring Bloom" (@springbloom5940) on "SWAT: Mission Creep | Retro Report | The New York Times" video.

  1. Its a little more complicated. SWAT is expensive and the situations that actually necessitate them, necessitate experience. So, not only is it difficult to justify a dozen man unit that costs as much as a full shift of patrolmen, sitting around doing nothing 364 days a year, but then when they're actually deployed, they're responding to a situation that can escalate into something completely different, in an instant; and thus they need realworld experience, to be effective. The right way to handle organization, is to have a small dedicated team, for high intensity entry and rescue operations and to have a large number of weapons and tactics qualified officers, who know the protocols and communications, distributed amongst the ranks. This way, there is a couple SWAT qualified officers available to immediately respond to any patrol contact, who can manage the situation until a team can assemble. Then, if it becomes a high risk scenario, like a barricaded suspect with hostages, there is a full on special ops team available, that does nothing year round, but train and operate together, for precisely this situation. Consider the value of two or three SWAT qualified patrolmen, as first responders to a shooting rampage, or armed robbery. Its a difficult problem and anyone rolling their eyes and ranting about 'pigs', just save that breath for prayers that someone you care about, never has to count on a common donut inspector to save them from a madman or bona fide Hard Corps criminal.
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