U.S. Police Gird for 'War'
Army Methods and Weapons Become the Goal
By William Booth
Washington Post Service

FRESNO, CaliforniaSergeant Wade Engelson is preparing
new recruits for war.
Sporting fatigues and buzz hair cuts, the men are being trained
in the use of submachine guns, explosives and chemical weapons. They
have at their disposal a helicopter and will soon have an armored
personnel carrier.
But Sergeant Engelson's men are not U.S. Navy Seals or army
Rangers. They are members of the Fresno Police Department, whose
enemy will be found not in faraway lands but in these very streets,
where police units patrol the neighborhoods fully armed and in urban
camouflage.
In their expanding strength and mission, the SWAT team in
Fresno mirrors a trend in United States law enforcementthe rise in
the number of police paramilitary units across the country and a rapid
expansion of their activities, a trend that police scholars refer to as "the
militarization" of civilian police.
The explosive growth and expanding mission of SWAT teams
has, in turn, led to complaints that they are too aggressive, too heavily
armed, too scary and that they erode the public's perception of the
police as public servants.
"It's a very dangerous thing, when you're telling cops they're
soldiers and there's an enemy out there," said Joseph McNamara, a
former chief of police in San Jose and Kansas City who is now at the
Hoover Institute at Stanford University. "I donit like it at all."
In a new study, a police researcher, Peter Kraska, and his
colleagues documented the growth of SWAT, which means Special
Weapons and Tactics. In a nationwide survey of 690 law enforcement
agencies serving cities with populations of 50,000 peopleor more, the
researchers found that 90 percent now have active SWAT teams,
compared with 60 percent in the early 1980s.
Even in rural communities and smaller cities, the researchers
have found that two of every three departments now have a SWAT
teama situation Mr. Kraska likens to "militarizing Maybsry," the
fictional small town in the Andy Griffith television show.
Yet more important than the raw numbers, Mr. Kraska said,
the SWAT mission has expanded. Once limited to highly specialized
actions, such against barricaded gunmen or hostagetakers, the teams
are now increasingly engaged in more standard police work. There is a
boom in "highrisk warrant work, " including "noknock entries," he
said.
The work is mostly related to the war on drugs, and by
extension, "gang suppression." "Where the SWAT teams were once
deployed a few times a year, they are now used for all kinds of police
workdozens of calls hundreds of calls a year," said Mr. Kraska, a
professor of police studies at Western Kentucky University. "In SWAT
units formed since 1980, their use has increased by 538 percent. "
The 30 members of Fresno's Violent Crime Suppression Unit
now patrol crimeridden neighborhoods day and night, serving warrants
at homes of suspected drug dealers and criminals, stopping vehicles,
interrogating gang members and showing a "presence."
As they move through the city of 400,000 people, they wear
subdued grayandblack urban camouflage and body armor. They have
at the ready ballistic shields and helmets, M17 gas masks and rappelling
gear. More equipment is carried m a mobile command bus that roves
the city. Then there's that armored personnel carrier on order.
The tactical police officers here also carry an assortment of
weaponry denied the normal beat officerbattering rams, diversionary
devices known as "flashbangs," chemical agents such as pepper spray
and tear gas, and specialized guns, including
assault rltles and, most tamously, the Fieclcler and Koch MP5, the
short, highly accurate 9mm, fully automatic submachine gun.
While the enormous rise in SWAT work has drawn some
criticism, police officials said it has been necessary.
In Fresno, Chief Ed Winchester said that a highly armed and
more violent criminal class requires an extreme response. Fresno
formed its SWAT team in 1973, about a decade after the first such
unit appeared in Los Angeles. Creation of the Fresno unit came after an
officer was shot and killed by a robbery suspect following a chaotic
police response in which officers fired hundreds of rounds at the
suspect, borrowed an ar nored car and used tear gas.
"It was what we would call a fiasco," Chief Winchester said. He
convinced everyone that a more highly trained, specialized and
disciplined unit was required.
From 1973 until 1994, Fresno's team Operated only in
response to very specific catlouts, such as barricaded suspects. But by
late 1994, Fresno was enduring a crime wave. There were 55
shootings in five months, with 13 people killed, including three
children.
And so Fresno's traditional SWAT unit transformed itself into
the Violent Crime Suppression Unit and took to the streets in constant
patrols.
"The criminals aren't stupid," Chief Winchester said. "They
see eight guys surrounding them, all carrying submachine guns and
wearing black fatigues, they don 't want to get killed."