SWAT

SWAT is an acronym for Special Weapons And Tactics. It is the most commonly known name to the public of a specialized paramilitary police unit in major city police departments who are trained to perform dangerous operations. These can include coordinated attacks on selected targets such as heavily armed criminals in secure locations. They are typically more heavily armed than ordinary police officers with submachine guns and carbines while high power rifles are available for snipers.

The first SWAT unit was concerted in Los Angeles. In 1960s Los Angeles had some serious troubles with sniping incidents against police officers and civilians. In every situations common police officiers didn't manage the situations, because of low training skills in weapon combat. Then Officier John Nelson came with idea to form special trained unit, that will manage to handle critical situation without any police casualty. Inspector Darryl F. Gates approved this idea, and he had formed small group of the best, and willing officiers.

This first SWAT unit was formely formed of 15 teams, each consisted of four men. Wherefore total is 60 This officiers had special status, and benefits. They had to attend special monthly training. This unit also served as security unit for police facilities during civil unrest. In LAPD, SWAT unit was marked as platoon "D".

First Challange of SWAT unit was on 9th december, year 1969. In Four-hour siege SWAT was against The Black Panthers. The Panthers finally surrendered, resulting in the wounding of three Panthers and three police officers.

On the afternoon of May 17, 1974, the SWAT Team took on one of its most significant challenges. The Simbianese Liberation Army (SLA), a group of heavily armed fugitive terrorists, barricaded themselves in a residence on East 54th Street at Compton Avenue. The event was witnessed by millions via television and radio and read about in the world press for days after. Appeals to surrender were made to the barricaded suspects on 26 separate occasions, 18 preceding the introduction of tear gas, and 10 during the ensuing confrontation. Not a single round was fired by police until their initial appeals had been answered by repeated volleys of semi-automatic and fully automatic gunfire. Despite the firing of 3,772 rounds by the SLA, no uninvolved citizens or police officers sustained injury from gunfire. The fate of the suspects, however, was somewhat different. During the gun battle, a fire erupted inside the residence. The cause of the fire is officially unknown, but it was speculated that an errant round ignited one of the suspect’s molotov cocktails. All six of the suspects suffered multiple gunshot wounds and perished in the ensuing blaze.

In 1983, SWAT supervisors, was coordinating evaluation of Similiar Police teams in europe, including German GSG-9, French GING or British SAS

Over 2,000 hours of training, per officer, was invested in each operator in order to make this new concept a reality. In the 19 days of the 1984 Summer Games, SWAT officers worked a grueling 24 hours on and 24 hours off in a full-time training mode to polish those skills. The Los Angeles Summer Games came and went without an incident, but the counter-terrorism skills developed during that time raised the team to a new level.

Since its inception, LAPD SWAT Team members have effected the safe rescue of numerous hostages, arrested scores of violent suspects and earned hundreds of commendations and citations, including several Medals of Valor, the Department’s highest award for heroism in the line of duty. The LAPD SWAT Team has rescued dozens of hostages and currently handles approximately 90 barricaded suspect incidents and 50 high-risk warrants a year.

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) pioneered the use of SWAT teams to suppress urban violence and riots in the 1960s. Public awareness of this kind of police unit quickly became well known with the premiere of the short lived but notorious television series S.W.A.T. in the 1970s which was panned as being overly violent and unrealistic with the characters regularly undergoing missions that usually happen only once in a lifetime for actual teams.

List of active SWAT teams in USA:

DEA tactical team (MET) Mobile Enforcement Team
Eufaula SWAT
Escondido T.O.U.
Hillsborough SWAT
Huntington Beach Police SWAT
Huntington Park Police SERT
Palm Springs PD S.W.A.T.
Placer County Sheriff's Department S.W.A.T.
San Jose Police M.E.R.G.E. Unit
Del Ray Beach Police SWAT Team
Florida S.W.A.T. Association
Leon Co. Sheriffs Office SWAT
Suwanee Co. Sheriff S.R.T.
Carmel SWAT Team
Marion County Sheriff's Department S.W.A.T.
Hyattsville Police H.E.A.T
State Police S.T.O.P. Team
Jackson Police Dept. SWAT
Doa Ana County Sheriff's Office SRT
Hendersonville S.E.T.
Washington County Sheriff's Office of Tactical Negotiations
Baldwin Borough Police SWAT
Johnstown Police CERT
National Tactical Officers Association
Chattanooga Police SWAT Team
Texas Assoc. of Hostage Negotiators
Texas Tactical Police Officer's Association
Spokane Police SWAT
Fond du Lac Police SWAT