I really don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work there, Whatever.

And by the way, I REALLY hope you’re not a cop. Really hope.

These posters sounds like people who’ll eventually be the recipient of a business call by the police.

Get a job getting shot at for a living, and some of the tactics will start to make sense.

I now return you to your hurt feelings and armchair quarterbacking.

I have the impression that the same thing happens with the ninja-stormtroopers. It’s the same thing with every other bureaucracy — justify your existence or have your budget cut.

Ideally, we want to save the ninjas for when you have the ex-mayor holding hostages at gunpoint, demanding his old job back and a 6000 SUX.

My question is, how hard is it to watch to house, wait til the guy leaves, detain him as soon as he does, and then search the place?

And I’m an Infantryman-I’m supposed to be predisposed to blasting everything in sight, violence of action and all that.

I wonder how much effect a flash bang has if you’re not in the same room when it goes off? In this case it sounds like it wasn’t very useful-the ‘suspect’ was upstairs, and the SWATters were presumably on the ground floor. Just making a lot of unnecessary noise and causing unneeded property damage.

The occupant of the house, on the second floor, yells that he does not want to surrender, fearing he will be shot.

… and he is probably right.

The lead officer behind the mask talks to him and calms him down, eventually convincing the subject to surrender.

… showing that the SWAT team wasn’t necessary to start with. He would have surrendered to, say, an officer knocking on the front door and saying, “c’mon out.” (With another uniformed officer watching the backdoor. Like they did 200 years ago on Dragnet.)

I don’t really blame the police for adopting and embracing such a tactic. I mean, I’d always feel safer throwing in a grenade and breaking down a door with 10 or 20 other guys wearing body armor and brandishing fully automatic weapons. Hey, that’s a pretty secure method of entering a house. I can’t fault them for wanting to take the safest way in.

I fault the leadership and administration for throwing up their hands and white-washing everything under the “officer safety” and “who cares about a bunch of criminals” banner.

What happens when the police get the wrong house? What happens when the police shoot the wrong people? What happens when a flahsbang goes off and injures an innocent person? What happens when they break down the wrong door and the homeowner has access to serious weaponry?

Even worse . . . what happens when some “bad guys” get black pajamas, some flashbangs, and decide to do home break-ins by screaming “SEARCH WARRANT!”

Hmmmm . . . question: Courts have ruled that all police have to do is yell they are the police and declare “SEARCH WARRANT!”, and that’s enough to signal a citizen to comply. What happens if someone screams that breaking into a house in order to rob it, and they get shot. The citizen didn’t KNOW they weren’t the police when they shot him. By court findings, they should have assumed they WERE the police. Has the citizen committed a crime? Maybe . . .

Shooting a dead body generally isn’t a crime. However, shooting a dead body you THOUGHT was alive is attempted murder. Any similarities?

Comical, but scary all at the same time.