SWAT: Under scrutiny, focused on safety

SWAT commanders say they are well aware that the team’s response has the power to either quell or inflame volatile situations, and they work hard to deploy judiciously. Over the past 10 years, SWAT has activated about three times a month, 70 percent of the time to execute search and arrest warrants. That increasing use of SWAT for routine matters is what worries civil libertarians, who argue it pits police against the citizens they are supposed to protect.

To be sure, SWAT action can save the day, as it did on March 14, when officers shot and killed one of Washington’s most wanted fugitives, who was armed and barricaded in a Ridgefield home. But SWAT also has the potential to escalate tensions, as a Ridgefield woman alleges in a federal civil-rights lawsuit against SWAT for shooting her when she was suicidal.

Public scrutiny of SWAT is appropriate, said Clark County Prosecutor Tony Golik, whose office reviews police-involved shootings.

“All of these are difficult calls,” Golik said. “They get Monday-morning quarterbacked every time, and they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.”

Concerns about use

That Monday-morning quarterbacking has intensified since the August shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., and the police crackdown on the resulting protests. Even before Michael Brown was shot, the American Civil Liberties Union was already sounding the alarm. The ACLU released an investigation in June that found “militarization of policing encourages officers to adopt a ‘warrior’ mentality and think of the people they are supposed to serve as enemies.”

Although SWAT teams were created to deal with hostage or barricade situations, they are routinely used to execute search warrants, often in homes where children are known to be present, the ACLU report states. After reviewing records of about 800 SWAT deployments by 20 agencies nationwide, the ACLU found that 79 percent of SWAT responses were searches. Only 7 percent were for hostage, barricade or active shooter scenarios.

Of the incidents in which officers believed a weapon would be present, only 35 percent of the time was one actually found, according to the study.

When Special Weapons and Tactics teams originated in the 1960s, they were used in extreme cases. But that has evolved.

“Our SWAT is very well-trained and extremely disciplined,” McCabe said. “People are looking to us to stabilize a situation. I think we do a very good job.”

Quality not easily assessed

Defining how well a SWAT team operates isn’t a simple task, said Mark Lomax, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, based in Doylestown, Pa.

“It’s kind of like what makes a good car. There are so many different variables,” Lomax said. Those variables include the size of the police agency, whether the SWAT team is a standalone unit, whether officer SWAT assignments are full-time or collateral. “The things we look at if we’re doing a review are what policies are in place, what equipment they have and how comfortable they are in using the equipment and training.”

The National Tactical Officers Association and the Washington State Tactical Officers Association both have standards for SWAT units, but have not assessed Southwest Regional SWAT, which encompasses about two dozen officers who have other assignments, as well as a K-9 officer, a crisis negotiation team and tactical emergency medical support team.

Law enforcement agencies in the county share the cost of SWAT, with amounts determined by population.

The annual cost to operate SWAT, including officer overtime, has more than doubled in the past 10 years, from $196,227 in 2005 to an estimated $488,419 this year. Neal attributed the increase to the addition of the crisis negotiation team and tactical emergency medical support team, as well as increasing cost of salaries and supplies, particularly ammunition.

The closest thing to an outside audit received by Southwest Regional SWAT was part of a review of the Vancouver Police Department last year by the International City/County Management Association.

The review cited a lack of a comprehensive SWAT operating manual. Chief James McElvain told the Vancouver City Council that a draft operating manual will be ready this month.

The departmental review also concluded the SWAT team “appears to be well-trained, with impressive specialized vehicles at their disposal. The team does use a ‘safety officer’ and should continue to do so.”

SWAT leaders say they consider carefully when to respond and whether to stay.

Prosecutor Golik serves with local police chiefs and the county sheriff on the Law Enforcement Council, which meets monthly. The subject of when SWAT should be deployed has been repeatedly discussed, as has using limited deployments, Golik said.

“All of these are difficult calls,” Golik said. “They don’t want to escalate the situation unnecessarily, but they also want to come home alive.”

No doubt, the sight of a SWAT deployment can be unsettling for neighbors and other witnesses who question whether the show of force is necessary.

During a July 5 call-out, for example, officers spent four hours trying to coax a convicted felon with a no-bail bench warrant to come out of a residence. Police had received an anonymous tip about his location and that the man was in violation of a domestic violence no-contact order.

A robot was able to show the officers the man was on the floor, gripping something under his stomach, but officers couldn’t determine what it was, Neal said. On the warrant, the man was listed as assaultive, which was one factor in the decision to deploy the SWAT team.

Officers eventually used tear gas on the home, rendering it uninhabitable for the woman occupant (the victim in the suspect’s domestic violence case) and her child. Was the damage worth bringing in a relatively low-level felon?

In domestic violence cases, Neal said, state law dictates that if officers have probable cause to believe a crime is being committed (in this case, violation of a protection order), they “shall” make an arrest.

Other times, “we’ve walked away from people with felony warrants,” he said. He gave an example of a call involving a suicidal man with a rifle. Initially, all officers knew was that he had a felony warrant. Then they found out the warrant was for a felony drug charge from the 1980s out of Oregon. The unit dispersed, leaving the man alone, Neal said.

“We don’t get into law enforcement to cause problems,” said McCabe, the other SWAT commander. “We care about the community. They should have confidence in the SWAT team.”