![]() Personnel from the LAPD, having seen these broadcasts, contacted Delano and inquired about the program. Television news stations and print media carried live and delayed reportage of these events across the United States. Though the strike never turned violent, the Delano Police Department responded by forming ad-hoc SWAT-type units involving crowd and riot control, sniper skills, and surveillance. ![]() At the time, the United Farm Workers union led by César Chavez was staging numerous protests in Delano in a strike that would last over five years. SWAT-type operations were conducted north of Los Angeles in the farming community of Delano, California on the border between Kern and Tulare Counties in the San Joaquin Valley. Gates explained in his autobiography Chief: My Life in the LAPD that he neither developed SWAT tactics nor the associated and often distinctive equipment but that he supported the underlying concept, tried to empower his people to develop it, and generally lent them moral support. Īfter the LAPD's establishment of its own SWAT team, many law enforcement agencies in United States established their own specialized units under various names. : 112Īnother reason for the creation of SWAT teams was the fear of lone or barricaded gunmen who might outperform police in a shootout, as happened in Austin with Charles Whitman. New York University professor Christian Parenti has written that SWAT teams were originally conceived of as an "urban counterinsurgency bulwark". Daryl Gates, who led the LAPD response to the riots, would later write that police at the time didn't face a single mob, but rather "people attacking from all directions". After the racially-charged Watts riots in Los Angeles in August 1965, the LAPD began considering tactics it could use when faced with urban unrest, rioting, or widespread violence. The LAPD promoted what became known as SWAT teams for a variety of reasons. Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Inspector Daryl Gates has said that he first envisioned "SWAT" as an acronym for "Special Weapons Attack Team" in 1967, but later accepted "Special Weapons and Tactics" on the advice of his deputy chief, Edward M. ![]() The tactic worked and was used to resolve other types of incidents involving heavily armed criminals. The purpose of this unit was to react quickly and decisively to bank robberies while they were in progress, using a large number of specially trained officers who had a great amount of firepower at their disposal. Īccording to the Historical Dictionary of Law Enforcement, the term "SWAT" was used as an acronym for the "Special Weapons and Tactics" established as a 100-man specialized unit in 1964 by the Philadelphia Police Department in response to an alarming increase in bank robberies. The LAPD Metropolitan Division's "D" Platoon is one of the world's most prominent SWAT units and was the second SWAT team established in the United States, after that of the Philadelphia Police Department in 1964. History Riots and political conflicts of the 1960s SWAT: A designated law enforcement team whose members are recruited, selected, trained, equipped and assigned to resolve critical incidents involving a threat to public safety which would otherwise exceed the capabilities of traditional law enforcement first responders and/or investigative units. The United States National Tactical Officers Association's definition of SWAT is: In addition, they may use specialized equipment including body armor, ballistic shields, entry tools, armored vehicles, thermal and night-vision devices, fiberscope cameras, and motion detectors for covertly determining the positions of suspects inside enclosed structures. SWAT units are often equipped with automatic and specialized firearms, including assault rifles, submachine guns, riot shotguns, sniper rifles, riot guns, riot control agents, smoke grenades, stun grenades, and stinger grenades. SWAT teams are increasingly equipped with military-type hardware and trained to deploy against threats of terrorism, for crowd control, hostage taking, and in situations beyond the capabilities of ordinary law enforcement, sometimes deemed "high-risk". By 2015 that number had increased to nearly 80,000 times a year. In the United States by 2005, SWAT teams were deployed 50,000 times every year, almost 80% of the time to serve search warrants, most often for narcotics. Although they were first created in the 1960s to handle riot control or violent confrontations with criminals, the number and usage of SWAT teams increased in the 1980s and 1990s during the War on Drugs and later in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. In the United States, a SWAT team ( special weapons and tactics, originally special weapons assault team ) is a police tactical unit that uses specialized or military equipment and tactics. FBI agents undergoing hostage rescue training and helicopter fast rope insertion training Law enforcement
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