GAO report on "Federal Tactical Teams"

[1168]

Okie, have you ever been in the National Guard?

Theres a huge gulf of difference in a part time Soldier and a part time SWAT dude. The part time SWAT dude is either out on patrol, or available locally (for local ones) on standby. The part time Soldier has a day job.

If I get a page for a callout (I’m a Medic, not a cop, though), I’m there pretty quickly. My gear is with me pretty much all the time. Page goes out, I call dispatch and tell them I’m in service, click the radio on, jump in my ride, and proceed to the scene or release point with whatever haste is due.

It takes an act of God to get me to go anywhere for a fight unscheduled for .mil. I need a WARNO, ammo request, a copy of orders, OPORD, DTS approved, transportation, somebody has to get to an ammo point, a trip to the arms room, more transportation, etc. Probably get pulled over at some point if theres any rush. All of this assumes I even answer the phone and am sober, since no one is paying me to be on-call for the Army.

A barricaded dude in a large structure with a hostage is completely different from a hurricane.

[Arik]

One of the reasons there are so many part time SWAT teams is that most Chiefs, Sheriffs, Mayors, Councilmen, etc. don’t give a shit about a maximally proficient SWAT, SRT, Dive Team, etc. They just want to be able to say they have one. Its like dudes that put a Truglo dot on their rifles. They’re more interested in having patrol units in service because they are visible, and making your SWAT dudes patrol kills two birds with one stone. Even better if he’s also a dog dude and a diver. So many birds, one salary.

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I know our county has SWAT, not sure about the bigger departments but they probably have something. The problem with the county is that there's a lot of little towns with a few officers. Now, all these towns kinda blend into one another so it's not like you have to drive some distance to get from one to the other but still each one with a different "mayor", police chief, budget....etc.. my township has something around 20-30 sworn personnel. Meaning from chief to rookie. The next town south probably about the same. The town north has less. There's one town not far from my work that has 4. One chief and 3 officers, one per shift. The town is like 2sq miles and sits in the middle of another township which is 29sq miles and probably has around 100 officers.

Then you have boroughs which were originally the town before it expanded and became a township. Many of the boroughs have their own departments and their own gov. For instance Newtown borough sits in the middle of Newtown township because it's the original town before expansion. Each one has their own police, fire and local gov even though it should and probably could be consolidated into one. So you end up with a 100 little departments that wouldn't be able to have SWAT even if they wanted. Granted most of these towns will never hear a gunshot in anger so there's no sense in spending the money on a dedicated township SWAT.

Yes...yes we do . Such utter bullshit.

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We have them too. Part of the Pa state police although they're not armed and are not "police" officers. So they're not patrolling

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[chuckman]

Maryland troopers are full service and have jurisdiction everywhere, but usually the county LE agencies, either sheriffs or county PDs depending on the county, handle most calls for service off the highway. Troopers mostly just back them up and do highway patrol, but yeah, they are more consolidated than states like NC that just have separate highway patrol, state investigation, etc. The county agencies in MD, however, usually cover the entire county regardless of municipal boundaries, and most of MD is unincorporated anyway. Around the Baltimore and Washington metro areas, the county agencies are very large and self sustaining and require very little assistance from MSP. Most of them have full time tactical teams as well. This is good for MSP as they can focus their special services on helping the smaller county agencies in the south and western parts of the state.

That's one thing I like. In NC. everything is so encapsulated. Tired of HP and want to go into investigations? You gotta apply to the SBI and go through their training. Such a waste of money and so disorganized. To work with more than one of them in a for-real event or training is like watching a circus; they can't even share comms.

Edited to add re: MSP, I love--LOVE--their trooper-medic job. I would have have gone if it wasn't for a very sick mother in NC I could not leave. I would not have cared to work the I-95/Washington-Baltimore corridor, but east or west, man, that's some beautiful land.

FBI HRT pretty much is as close to Delta Force you can get: Their selection course and operator training program is nearly identical, save for the fact that HRT's course is modified to conform to domestic law enforcement rather than military operations. But other than HRT and the other ones I mentioned, the other units are not really streamlined for paramilitary operations and they aren't really any better at it than state and local PD SWAT units. I'd actually take a full time local unit like LAPD SWAT over a part time federal unit. Most SWAT units aren't trained for counterterrorism; they're trained for high risk arrests of one or a small number of potentially dangerous suspects.

I begrudgingly give HRT a nod because they can walk the walk. I say 'begrudgingly' because a lot of them think their shi# don't stink. You know that old joke, "A crossfitter, a vegan, and a Navy SEAL walk into a bar....how do you know? It's the first thing they tell you." Add HRT to that joke. We did some stuff with them when I was both in the mil and with our local PD tac team, they can indeed do the job. I just wish they'd shut up about it.

[BoringGuy45]

I know our county has SWAT, not sure about the bigger departments but they probably have something. The problem with the county is that there's a lot of little towns with a few officers. Now, all these towns kinda blend into one another so it's not like you have to drive some distance to get from one to the other but still each one with a different "mayor", police chief, budget....etc.. my township has something around 20-30 sworn personnel. Meaning from chief to rookie. The next town south probably about the same. The town north has less. There's one town not far from my work that has 4. One chief and 3 officers, one per shift. The town is like 2sq miles and sits in the middle of another township which is 29sq miles and probably has around 100 officers.

Then you have boroughs which were originally the town before it expanded and became a township. Many of the boroughs have their own departments and their own gov. For instance Newtown borough sits in the middle of Newtown township because it's the original town before expansion. Each one has their own police, fire and local gov even though it should and probably could be consolidated into one. So you end up with a 100 little departments that wouldn't be able to have SWAT even if they wanted. Granted most of these towns will never hear a gunshot in anger so there's no sense in spending the money on a dedicated township SWAT.





We have them too. Part of the Pa state police although they're not armed and are not "police" officers. So they're not patrolling

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PA is f**ked 6 ways to Sunday in terms of their law enforcement setup. It's nothing but dick measuring and small town politics. It's utterly moronic that the sheriffs are confined to court duties and not even considered police officers. All this inefficiency could be solved by giving sheriff's offices full police power and duties like in most of the other states and having them be the primary police force for most of their respective counties. But no, the chiefs of these 5 man departments in these one horse boroughs and townships aren't going to give up their little kingdoms to simply be a supervisor at a patrol precinct of the sheriff's office.

Hell, they could do it easier than that: If they didn't want to go through the agony of legislation to give the sheriff's full police status, the counties could just form county PDs, as two counties already have them in limited capacity and the system is already in place for that. But once again, the local PDs won't cooperate.

[Arik]

PA is f**ked 6 ways to Sunday in terms of their law enforcement setup. It's nothing but dick measuring and small town politics. It's utterly moronic that the sheriffs are confined to court duties and not even considered police officers. All this inefficiency could be solved by giving sheriff's offices full police power and duties like in most of the other states and having them be the primary police force for most of their respective counties. But no, the chiefs of these 5 man departments in these one horse boroughs and townships aren't going to give up their little kingdoms to simply be a supervisor at a patrol precinct of the sheriff's office.

Hell, they could do it easier than that: If they didn't want to go through the agony of legislation to give the sheriff's full police status, the counties could just form county PDs, as two counties already have them in limited capacity and the system is already in place for that. But once again, the local PDs won't cooperate.

Yep. At the very least they could start by incorporating these small 2 man departments into the township they're in the middle of! Take for instance Middletown township. It's about 20sq miles and so I'm guessing they have about 60 cops, maybe more. However, they're located in Langhorne which has their own small police department! An the middle of this is the town of Penndel which is like 2sq miles and has 3 cops.

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[sundance435]

Other than the few full time units, these teams aren't "streamlined and top notch". I've worked with feds before. The part time guys are doing collateral duty for high risk warrants, and not much more than that. A lot of them are also just security responses teams for government property. Don't give the federal government too much credit for the ability to cooperate and organize

Yes, this is it in a nutshell.

FBI But other than HRT and the other ones I mentioned, the other units are not really streamlined for paramilitary operations and they aren't really any better at it than state and local PD SWAT units. I'd actually take a full time local unit like LAPD SWAT over a part time federal unit. Most SWAT units aren't trained for counterterrorism; they're trained for high risk arrests of one or a small number of potentially dangerous suspects.

Yes, 100% I would take LAPD SWAT, Dallas SWAT, etc. for actual law enforcement SWAT tasks than most of these federal "teams". With the exception maybe of NYPD, I doubt any local SWAT or most of the federal teams have actual CT training. 99% of SWAT - local, county, state, and federal only carry out high-risk law enforcement specific tasks. Only in the movies do they handle major hostage situations, counter terrorism, etc. My slightly educated guess is that the only teams that have any real CT training besides HRT are USSS, Nuclear Security (still probably more asset-protection based CT), and FBI. I will say the USMS SOG guys are pretty close to HRT in their opinions of themselves, but I won't deny that they're hitters.

[Arik]

Yes, this is it in a nutshell.



Yes, 100% I would take LAPD SWAT, Dallas SWAT, etc. for actual SWAT tasks than most of these federal "teams". With the exception maybe of NYPD, I doubt any local SWAT or most of the federal teams have actual CT training. My slightly educated guess is that the only teams that have any real CT training besides HRT are USSS, Nuclear Security (still probably more asset-protection based CT), and FBI. I will say the USMS SOG guys are pretty close to HRT in their opinions of themselves, but they're hitters, too.



Not really accurate on the history of sheriffs, but your other points were good so I'll let it slide. "Modern" policing starts here with Boston, but sheriffs or constables were the only real law enforcement officers in most of this country until the later have of the 1800's. Yes, they were responsible for the jails and service of process, warrants, etc., but they also enforced laws in the entire county or precinct (constable) because there were no police departments.

In Pa Sheriff is a court officer. They don't patrol or respond to calls. However, they are not corrections. They protect the courthouse, do prisoner transfer, deeds, some warrants, anything court related.

Department of corrections is separate and does its own thing.

Police are separate from that and do what police typically do

Constables are basically bounty hunters. They're elected and go after those who skipped bail.

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[okie]

Okie, have you ever been in the National Guard?

Theres a huge gulf of difference in a part time Soldier and a part time SWAT dude. The part time SWAT dude is either out on patrol, or available locally (for local ones) on standby. The part time Soldier has a day job.

That's the whole point. You're not going to shoot your friends, neighbors, and coworkers unless you have a really good reason to do so. Our founders didn't want professional door kickers for the same reason they didn't want professional jurors and career politicians. The people holding that kind of power shouldn't be relying on government for a paycheck, but rather acting on conscience and their sense of duty alone when executing orders.

If I get a page for a callout (I’m a Medic, not a cop, though), I’m there pretty quickly. My gear is with me pretty much all the time. Page goes out, I call dispatch and tell them I’m in service, click the radio on, jump in my ride, and proceed to the scene or release point with whatever haste is due.

It takes an act of God to get me to go anywhere for a fight unscheduled for .mil. I need a WARNO, ammo request, a copy of orders, OPORD, DTS approved, transportation, somebody has to get to an ammo point, a trip to the arms room, more transportation, etc. Probably get pulled over at some point if theres any rush. All of this assumes I even answer the phone and am sober, since no one is paying me to be on-call for the Army.

The same can be said of police in many cases. Investigators and SWAT will tell you that they have no set hours, and typically do those jobs as much off hours as on.

Even if what you say were true, though, are we really going to scrap the constitution for security on tap? And does it even work in the first place? Not really. Like everyone points out, the police are minutes away when seconds count. If security on tap worked like people think it does, we wouldn't have the overwhelming statistics to back up our claim that we need guns for personal protection.

So in effect, nothing would change. The police might get there a few minutes later (or maybe not), but the net result will be the same. If the victim had a gun, they'll probably still be alive. If not, they'll be there in time to determine time of death.

I wouldn't just automatically assume, though, that the constitutional system of using the militia would be any slower. Chances are it would be faster, because the militia, like our founders intended it, is a MASSIVE force, that is also evenly distributed. Imagine if virtually every person between 18 and 45 were in the militia. If one percent of them had their phones on and were in a position to answer a call from dispatch, the average person would have help in mere seconds. Especially with today's technology. We've come a long ways from calling out the militia by ringing the church bells.

A barricaded dude in a large structure with a hostage is completely different from a hurricane.

So is being in a mortar team, driving tanks, repairing radios, and all the other specialized tasks that the national guard does. Are you really telling me that if we return to a constitutional system that the national guard couldn't evolve to meet the challenge? Of course they would.

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[sundance435]

Sheriffs also served in a pretty different capacity back then than they do today, and were local, not federal, so not really applicable to this topic. They were basically jailers and errand boys for the courts, which is still their primary capacity to this day. If doors needed to be kicked, they still relied on the local townspeople in the form of posses. A sheriff had zero paramilitary resources at his disposal back then. That's actually been very recent.

There will always be shades of gray, but the constitution is pretty clear. Executing laws is the militia's domain, and the federal government is prohibited from having its own armed forces except for finite periods during a time of declared war.

Your understanding and interpretation of the history of law enforcement, standing armies, etc., is precarious at best. First, your statement about sheriffs is only half true. That's what sheriffs were and are in England, but here, even before the Revolution, either they or constables were the chief law enforcement officers in each county/precinct and they deputized as necessary to enforce state laws. There was no state law enforcement.

Second, your interpretation of "militias" executing federal laws, well, I don't even really know where to begin with that. First, there is no prohibition in the Constitution against the federal government having a standing army. Literally all it says is that Congress shall appropriate the money for it (for periods no longer than 2 years, which is still true today) and the President shall command the armed forces as they are funded by Congress. The power to enforce federal law is given entirely to the Executive in the Constitution. The Executive has always accomplished this by appointing/deputizing others. In the early years of the Republic, the Marshals Service was the only federal law enforcement, not some "militia". Taxes, customs, etc. were collected by revenue agents, but they were nothing like law enforcers and were not empowered as such - dude won't pay the duties on his hemp imports? Notify the Marshals.

[sundance435]

In Pa Sheriff is a court officer. They don't patrol or respond to calls. However, they are not corrections. They protect the courthouse, do prisoner transfer, deeds, some warrants, anything court related.

Department of corrections is separate and does its own thing.

Police are separate from that and do what police typically do

Constables are basically bounty hunters. They're elected and go after those who skipped bail.

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Yeah, there are some exceptions in the "old" states (and Hawaii), but it's not accurate to say as a whole that they were jailers and process servers. Sheriffs as law enforcement for colonial/state laws started before the Revolution. Basically, the Office of Sheriff started taking on new duties in the New World as soon as they were created because of necessity - you didn't have redcoats running around all over with the King's X. As new states joined, their constitutions obviously differed some from the early states because of experience and the sheriff positions created by them took on more responsibilities than in the older states.