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The problem is that people are only good at things that they do regularly (and often not even then). There are a lot of stories out there of terrible SWAT incid

The problem is that people are only good at things that they do regularly (and often not even then). There are a lot of stories out there of terrible SWAT incidents or SWAT being deployed to to situations where it isn't warranted. Building up a militarized unit in a place that doesn't have much call for it creates a tendency to unnecessary use of force. Chekov's gunmen, basically.

whimsicalism 5y ago
So, because police aren't practiced at responding often to hostage incidents - they should just not send anyone at all? Ultimately, you're going to have to have people deal with hostage situations, heavily armed organized crime, etc.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Not at all. If your interpretation of somebody's words yields nonsense, you should probably try for another interpretation.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I'm honestly trying to read between the lines because you are leaving too much unsaid. What are you proposing is done if the police receive a call that seems to be from someone in a house saying there is someone taking their family hostage who says they are going to kill them? How should we address irregular crimes that can require a rapid response?
    - wpietri 5y ago
      I'm not proposing anything in particular. I'm saying that treating things like a unverified phone call as requiring a rushed militarized response tends to lead to military outcomes, and this problem is exacerbated when you create militarized units in jurisdictions that don't have enough serious incidents that they can get good at it. We can look in contrast at the British approach to policing where most cops are unarmed. What armed response units they have are highly trained and very closely supervised. The outcome? American cops kill people at 60x the rate English cops do. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ The US has a big problem with "We must do something! And rushing in with heavy force is something!" thinking. It's the same with car chases. For decades reformers have been slowly winding down the car chase because they have heavy collateral damage: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/police-pursuit-high-speed-car-chase-deaths.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/police-pursuit-h...
    - curryst 5y ago
      We should centralize the "heavy response teams" until we hit a level of aggregation where they are being deployed relatively frequently (over a large area) and it makes sense to give them a lot of very specific training on those scenarios. Frankly, the National Guard is a fairly compelling option here for most states. There are already existing bases, they train in hostile shooter scenarios frequently, and they already have access to all the gear SWAT claims they need. National average SWAT response time is an hour. Helicopters fly about 160mph. One military base could provide support for a lot of cities at once.
      - wpietri 5y ago
        Ooh, using the National Guard for SWAT-ish activity is a really interesting idea. It puts military gear and tactics back in the hands of the military. It would give more oversight to the decision to call them in as well.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > We should centralize the "heavy response teams" until we hit a level of aggregation where they are being deployed relatively frequently (over a large area) and it makes sense to give them a lot of very specific training on those scenarios. Yeah, while I generally advocate decentralizing local law enforcement and distributing “policing” within domain-focussed local agencies that are mostly not solely about law enforcement, tactical response and major investigation functions both are things that make sense to be pulled out of local agencies entirely and (separately from each other) centralized at a state or regional level, and the National Guard is a very good place to put the tactical response function.

whimsicalism 5y ago

So, because police aren't practiced at responding often to hostage incidents - they should just not send anyone at all? Ultimately, you're going to have to have people deal with hostage situations, heavily armed organized crime, etc.

wpietri 5y ago
Not at all. If your interpretation of somebody's words yields nonsense, you should probably try for another interpretation.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I'm honestly trying to read between the lines because you are leaving too much unsaid. What are you proposing is done if the police receive a call that seems to be from someone in a house saying there is someone taking their family hostage who says they are going to kill them? How should we address irregular crimes that can require a rapid response?
  - wpietri 5y ago
    I'm not proposing anything in particular. I'm saying that treating things like a unverified phone call as requiring a rushed militarized response tends to lead to military outcomes, and this problem is exacerbated when you create militarized units in jurisdictions that don't have enough serious incidents that they can get good at it. We can look in contrast at the British approach to policing where most cops are unarmed. What armed response units they have are highly trained and very closely supervised. The outcome? American cops kill people at 60x the rate English cops do. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ The US has a big problem with "We must do something! And rushing in with heavy force is something!" thinking. It's the same with car chases. For decades reformers have been slowly winding down the car chase because they have heavy collateral damage: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/police-pursuit-high-speed-car-chase-deaths.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/police-pursuit-h...
  - curryst 5y ago
    We should centralize the "heavy response teams" until we hit a level of aggregation where they are being deployed relatively frequently (over a large area) and it makes sense to give them a lot of very specific training on those scenarios. Frankly, the National Guard is a fairly compelling option here for most states. There are already existing bases, they train in hostile shooter scenarios frequently, and they already have access to all the gear SWAT claims they need. National average SWAT response time is an hour. Helicopters fly about 160mph. One military base could provide support for a lot of cities at once.
    - wpietri 5y ago
      Ooh, using the National Guard for SWAT-ish activity is a really interesting idea. It puts military gear and tactics back in the hands of the military. It would give more oversight to the decision to call them in as well.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > We should centralize the "heavy response teams" until we hit a level of aggregation where they are being deployed relatively frequently (over a large area) and it makes sense to give them a lot of very specific training on those scenarios. Yeah, while I generally advocate decentralizing local law enforcement and distributing “policing” within domain-focussed local agencies that are mostly not solely about law enforcement, tactical response and major investigation functions both are things that make sense to be pulled out of local agencies entirely and (separately from each other) centralized at a state or regional level, and the National Guard is a very good place to put the tactical response function.