[Kasik]

Years ago, before I retired from law enforcement, I was a certified SWAT instructor for the state I worked in and I trained our department's tactical team (we chose not to call it "SWAT").

The resource (team) became available because the chief wanted one. He wanted one because no other nearby department had one. It was essentially a ego thing.

But we created, equipped and trained a pretty decent team to include having a very non-threatening, low profile vehicle to move it around in and it did some good work although not often.

BLUF - if you've bought it (sold the powers that be that your department and community really really REALLY needs such a resource and they've paid for it) you have to use it...or you'll lose it budgeting wise.

Which means there is the very real tendency to over-use this capability and to use it where good old fashioned and seasoned street officers could get the same thing done (warrant service, for example) and often more safely and smarter.

To me, today, it's all about the money. Getting grants and posturing to your fellow chiefs and sheriffs about how your department now has its own "door kickers" and the latest greatest equipment.

Give me a street smart cop who knows the case, the folks involved and loves being creative. He or she will get 98% of the "high risk" arrests done without mishap or the front page of the newspaper's announcement of how "SWAT" shot yet another family pet.