Since you posted a picture of a German team I think it’s worth pointing out some differences: - With very few exceptions (AFAIK only Stuttgart and Frankfurt) a

Since you posted a picture of a German team I think it’s worth pointing out some differences: - With very few exceptions (AFAIK only Stuttgart and Frankfurt) all armed police is only provided by the state and not municipalities - This means special units, including technical units but also SWAT teams, serve a wide area. Often a whole state, in bigger state sizable portion of it - The idea of a small town - or a college - police having their own SWAT team is completely foreign - Normal police is already much more intensively trained than in the US. SWAT adds to this. SWAT is treated as expensive specialists, not a part time duty a cop can do on the side As an example, I studied in Aachen. Aachen has no SWAT team. When one was needed it would come from Cologne (usually) or Düsseldorf. Both an hour drive away. Now there are many structural differences between the US and Germany that you can‘t lift-and-ship the German approach to policing to the US but it’s disingenuous to imply German police is as militarized as American police because it also have SWAT teams.