How Swat Teams Work

In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck discuss SWAT teams, elite police units that are specially trained for extreme situations.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and Charles Chuck Bryant's with

(00:20):
me as usual. It just wouldn't be the same if
you weren't, That's what I hear. Yeah, um, thankfully for
me and me. Oh sweetie, So that means this is
stuff you should know, all right, Chuck the podcast The
Legend Lives on. Yeah, we thought about a name change recently,
but we figured we'd just stick with it. Yeah, stuff

(00:41):
you should know. Yes, we thought about a name change.
I just made that up. Okay, I was gonna say
you never see see me on any emails anymore? Yeah, yeah,
So Chuck has a swat team ever rated your house? No?
I did have a cop come to my door one
time in Athens, so for what. I don't know why.

(01:02):
Actually I don't remember. I just remember being woken up
and there was a cop at the door, and I
can't remember exactly why he was coming by. It was
a mistake, clearly, but I also, you know, didn't fully
open the door. If you know what I'm saying. You
are you making air quotes that you don't remember. It
was a mistake, it really was. I don't honestly don't

(01:23):
remember why he showed up. I just remember thinking, I'm
just going to crack the door here and see what
this cop wants. Have you been arrested? No? Really does
that surprise you a little bit? Yeah? I mean you
went to college in Athens, l A. For a while.
I mean I did get shaken down in front of
the Georgia Theater one night, like against the wall, frist
because there was no reasons. They're always shaking people down. Yeah,

(01:47):
I mean they literally had no reason. They put all
of our friends up against the wall, like stop the
car and just jumped out, and as we were leaving
a show. I think Georgia Theater being in the vicinity
of it was probably cause under law in Athens it
was weird. And then they left as soon as they came,
they just like left. It's so odd. Well, luckily for you,
you didn't die of a heart attack, you weren't shot

(02:08):
in the chest, you weren't shot three times. No, um,
had it been a swat team that shook you down
or came to your door. All of these things may
have happened. I might have been too tapped. Yeah, yeah,
what swat teams are, chuck, We should probably get to
that finally, right, Yes, swat teams are um, specially trained
and specially equipped and armed divisions of police departments, heavily armed.

(02:34):
Very Yeah. A lot of their stuff is cobbled together
through um uh military surplus. Yeah. I didn't realize that.
I didn't either. Pretty cool thanks to the grabster who
wrote yet another fine article. Yeah, he's one of the
faiths around here. He is. He's a good guy and
ironically neither one of us have ever met him. No, like, yeah, yeah,

(02:54):
I don't want to spoil it for you though. Yeah.
I don't like doing that. I like keeping like a
non image or seen with a beard. Does he have
a beard? He does, But we get that a lot
when people see pictures of us, they right in and
to express their displeasure, which is always were obtuse. Yeah. Uh,
Special Weapons and Tactics Josh is the name now, but
what was it originally? Special Weapons Attack Team. Yeah, they

(03:18):
realized it was a little too aggressive sounding a little bit. Yeah, so, um,
the the the guy who came up with the original
name Special Weapons Attack Team. Right, was a guy named
Daryl Gates who was police chief of l A p
D for a very very long time while you were there,
in fact, there during Rodney King incident. Now my brother

(03:39):
was though, Yeah, was he anywhere near like south Central? Um, Well,
it happened all over. He saw he was in the
area of the riots. And you know clearly stayed in
his apartment. Okay, so your brother's not Reginald Denny Good. Yeah,
that'd be bad. I hope that guy's doing all right.
But yeah, me too. Um. But Gates didn't actually uh

(04:01):
invent the swat team. He's falsely credited with that. He
did champion the idea. I get the impression that a
front of his or somebody lower on or I should
say higher on the totem pole, came up with that idea,
and being in a position of authority, Uh, he was
still a high ranking officer then, although not yet police chief,
Gates said this is a great idea. So he assembled

(04:24):
the world's first swat team, or at the very least
the United States first swat team, l ap D leading
the way as usual. Right, they also brought us with bribery, corruption, planning, weapons, brutality,
brutality of long history of bad things. Yeah, they've cleaned
it up, though I think now have they Supposedly they
they every decade they've cleaned it up, and then something

(04:47):
horrible happened, and they've cleaned it up. Then fifty horrible
things happened. But again they are credited with coming up
with the first swat team in America. That was seven.
So they sat around for two years and waited until
an organization known as the Black Panthers UM did not
want the l a p d To enter when they

(05:08):
came a knocking on some gun warrants that their headquarters.
One of their first encounters that in the Simbionese Liberation Army.
Right actually read accounts of these these two things, that
the Black Panthers standoff in sixty nine and the s
l A standoff in seventy four, UM were days long, right.

(05:32):
They In the s l A stand off, they they
shot tear gas into the house. Nothing, they just really
turned fire. Everybody either died of gunshot wounds or burned
in the fire. The Black Panthers all made it out alive,
but this was after several days too. And in both cases,
both sides fired several thousand rounds at one another. Yeah,

(05:54):
that's a serious standoff. So yeah, and this is um
It definitely remains in the the mentality of the l
A p D SWAT team because they have an unofficial
patch that has forty one and fifty four. Uh. The
Black Panthers headquarters where the standoff took place was at
forty one Street, and then the s l A standoff
was at fifty four and I think Compton Avenue, Yeah, exactly.

(06:20):
I mean like this created it. At the very least,
it showed the world that you do need SWAT teams,
because up to this point, before the SWAT teams were created,
any officer who came up on a scene was expected
to resolve the problem sure with you know, I mean,
I wouldn't say minimal firearms, but certainly not special especially equipped. Right.

(06:42):
And then in n UM the I don't remember what
what network it was on, but SWAT came out. Cops
show about SWAT teams. Oh, is he in it? Yeah?
I never saw it. I saw the horrible, horrible remake,
the view version. Yeah, I didn't see that with Sam
Jackson and Colin Farrell. I didn't see that. That's a

(07:05):
deadly combination. Now, was that a remaker? Was it drinking
water in rural Mexico? But in movie form, you know what?
Sam Jackson and Colin Farrell. Yeah, yeah, Sam Jackson's almost
a parody of himself at this point. Yeah, he has
been the whole time. We just didn't catch on at first.
Is that what I was think? So, Uh, let's talk

(07:25):
a little bit about how many there are in the country.
Supposedly there are about twelve hundred swat teams in the
United States, and of police forces in cities of fifty
thousand or more have some kind of swat team. Not bad, no,
not at all. Smaller towns, yeah, which is uh, pretty

(07:45):
much everybody. I think there's twelve across the country. Um,
and some cities, smaller towns um have kind of gotten
together with other nearby smaller towns and have been like, hey,
Wolf own a few swat team members in some equipment.
You guys do the same. We'll have a regional swat team. Right,
I've got two point men if you've got a sniper,

(08:08):
and they'll just collecting Harry Potter trading cards with real
life swat team member, right, I never thought about that.
So what do they use these people for, Chuck, this
this elite group of technically trained, heavily armed paramilitary police officers. Well, Josh,
there's quite a few scenarios. A high risk warrant obviously,

(08:29):
if they're going to serve a warrant to a known
violent felon who may have a gun or armament, right,
they want to bring in the swat team any kind
of hostage situation or barricade situation obviously. Um, a high
risk person is when someone needs to be transported like
some nasty sereal Henry Hill, and obviously terrorist attacks or riots,

(08:53):
you call him the swat team, yeah, or the riot crew,
which we should do. Uh, this made me want to
do one on riot control. Actually we should do that.
It's point cracking heads. Oh is that how they do it,
cracking hippies heads? Yeah, hippies. We should do that because
we could talk about the Battle for Seattle in Yeah,
my friend was there. Yeah, that's right. I think you
said that inciting the riot throwing bricks and funny funny

(09:17):
signs that he held up like Simpsons references and are
kind of guy. Alright, So look for riot control coming up. Right. Indeed, um,
so check there's about forty swat raids in the US
every year. Yeah, that's a lot, didn't it. Yeah, I
didn't realize that it's growing and growing in the last
twenty five years. It's increased now. Is that because they're

(09:39):
a little more trigger happy, or because there's more swat guys,
or there because there's more situations that need it for
all three? Probably it's probably all three plus a little
bit of um looser federal funding coming in than there
ever was before. The Department of Homeland securities around. They
have deep pockets, so the police station might say, wow, sure,
let's get that tank since we have the dough nice. Yeah,

(10:01):
although it's really not a tank. Yeah, well we should
talk about that. Actually, it says a lot of times
the vehicles are are transformed into swat vehicles. So they'll
just take like a delivery van and arm it painted
black and throw some bat shields up on it, and
all of a sudden, that's a that's an armed vehicle. Yeah,
and a lot of times it sees stuff. Yeah, sometimes

(10:23):
they use r vs. Um I love this park, Go ahead,
I know where you're going where it'll be like a
mobile command headquarters. The reason it's so valuable is really obvious,
but it's easy to overlook because they have a bathroom. Yeah,
I never see in the movies. You never see the
hostage standoff where the guy says, I have to go
take a leak. Yeah, you you stay there way when

(10:45):
you're gun don't shoot anybody while I'm gone. You've never
see anyone sneeze or go to the bathroom anything like
that unless it's important to the film, right, And a
lot of times they'll use these transports, though heavily armed,
to like actually carry the SWAT team members into an assault. Um.
But it doesn't always work. Um. In Night After German
terrorists sees the Nakatomi Building in Los Angeles, the L

(11:08):
a p D. SWAT Team used their heavily armored vehicle
to try to breach the door to the building and
they were fired upon by the terrorists using a rocket launcher,
which I think killed or injured everyone inside. Chi stay finsta, yeh,
ask me what that means? What does that mean? Shoot
the glass? Okay? Thanks now? And if no one out

(11:30):
there realizes that we're talking clearly about the movie die Hard,
then wah, you really need to get out more at
least want more movies. Yeah, absolutely, all right, Chuck, Let's
get down to basics here, dude. Okay, we've gotten so
far Afield it's ridiculous. No, not really, not as bad
as we did with the whole g I, Joe, Tirade
and Ninja. Yea, yeah. Um, how do you become a

(11:54):
SWAT Team member? Well, Josh, there's different ways you can
become a member. You obviously have to be a police officer,
and uh many times you can volunteer if you just
want the extra action and you feel like you're capable,
or you're a really good marksman or just a tough guy.
Sometimes though, you are actually forced into duty. Yeah, you know,

(12:15):
there's couple of years of service. It's um, it's like
a uh as a point in a police officer's career,
like you start as rookie, you've worked to be, you know,
and then maybe at some point you're a detective and
then after that a swatter. Maybe those are good version.
But yeah, some on some forces you're expected to eventually
be a SWAP member for a little while. On um

(12:36):
smaller uh scales, SWAT Team members will be regular police
officers as well. Or just driving around like looking for
bad guys or whatever, and then there's a there's a
call out, which is what they're called, um and then
they'll go and get their stuff and get ready. Right
in places like l A, New York, their SWAT teams

(12:58):
are like just SWAP members seven. They train all the time.
They're they're very well funded, very heavily armed. Uh, and
that is the SWAT team that we generally think of
when we think of swap, right, yeah, So how do
they get to be this way? I mean, clearly they're
they're badasses, but they have to go through training, right Yeah,
And like you said, the training never ends when you're

(13:19):
like kind of being in the military. You don't stop training.
You're constantly training because you gotta keep up the physical fitness. Uh.
You should be an expert marksman, although it's not absolutely required,
I think it is in a lot of like the
ones where they're SWAT teams said, I think that they
do require them to be such expert marksman that they're
they're automatically qualified to teach marksman courses. Right. I believe

(13:42):
master marksman is the term we're looking for, which makes sense. Sure,
So what they do here obviously is set up scenarios
to practice. You know when you see in the movies
when they have the fake city scene or the fake
house and then they push the button and outcomes a
dummy of a of a bad guy academy. Yeah, or
outcomes the dummy of a lady holding a child, and

(14:03):
invariably in the movie that they shoot the lady by
accident and they have to start. That's really how it
goes down though. Yeah. Yeah, which makes a lot of
sense because, as the Grabs are points out in the article,
sitting around and talking about what you should do is
not really good training. You need high levels of training
or computer sunds. They do that too, sure, which I

(14:25):
think usually require you walking around with the gun as well.
They to do Yeah, okay, I don't think it's just
like a joystick. I think you're in a room where
it simulates like the mannequins coming out gun right, But
instead it's like all the characters from a sonic the Hedgehog.
So Chuck, we've got gun training. Uh. There's often um, well,

(14:47):
I shouldn't say often in some cases, specifically with the
l A. P. D Um. There's also a lot of
hostage negotiation training as well. Uh, in most places keep
SWAT and hostage negotiation totally separate. They don't want them
to mix. They actually probably want them to butt heads
a little bit so that there's real discourse about whether

(15:07):
or not to go in with guns blazing or to
try to resolve the situation through negotiation. Right. But in
the l A p D SWAT, every single one of
them is a trained hostage negotiator that's qualified to take
over negotiations as the lead negotiating. That's pretty cool. It
is pretty cool, and that was multifaceted. Yeah, that was
one of my favorite podcasts we did too, about the

(15:27):
hostage and negotiations. So these are closely tied UH, segments
of private law enforcement. I guess I keep wanting to
call it military, but well it's paramilitary. I mean, they
very much resemble a military like teams. They have, UM,
stealth reconnaissance team members, people who you know, if if

(15:49):
they are getting some information about the layout of the house,
maybe from the negotiator the hostage was let go or
something like that, UM that they need more, they'll send
a couple of guys in and they will drill a
hole and put a pinhole camera in to keep an
eye on the guy, get more information about the house,
that kind of stuff. Right. They have snipers obviously, yes,

(16:09):
anti sniper snipers, do they ya? Because what if there's
a sniper shooting at you that well, wouldn't that just
be a sniper? Yeah, but they call them anti snipers. Uh, well, yeah,
I guess that's true. Most snipers aren't just like some
jerk walking around waving a gun inside of a house.
You're probably hard to hit. And what else do they have?

(16:30):
Explosive explosive guys experts demolition. I guess you would call
it pretty cool. Yeah, so, I mean this is not
your average average ordinary patrol guy who's gonna pull you
over for running a stop sign. Right, No, definitely not so, Chuck.
We've kind of referred to it here there you know,
there's like a guy waving a gun in the house

(16:51):
or whatever. SWAT situations are generally, um where there's a standoff,
like you said, yeah, um to where there there is
a guy in a house. So he has hostages, he's
barricaded himself inside, he's not responding, right, so the swat

(17:11):
team is called out. The swat team apparently takes about
an hour to assemble get make it to the scene,
right Yeah, even though I think you mentioned that they can.
They listen in on the police radio and if they
hear of a scenario where they might be called, they'll
go ahead and start loading the shotguns with shells and
start getting ready just in case, putting on the grease

(17:32):
paint exactly the chicken blood across the forehead. Yeah. Um.
But when they make it out, one of the first
things they'll do, apparently is come up with um, quick
and dirty. Yeah, I just made air quotes as you saw,
contingency plans in case this thing just falls apart. Right
when they get there, they need to know how to

(17:53):
get in, get as many people out as possible, neutralize
the guy, which is another word for kill exactly. Uh.
And um, if they do have time of the situation
is what the cops call static, meaning the guys just
he's responding tonying negotiator. He's not shooting anybody yet. It's
still standoff, but there's not nothing. There's the element of time.

(18:16):
They have time, then they're gonna start planning, right Yeah.
That's when you bring in the r V and that
means you can use the bathroom if you want and
come up with a very you know, safe plan because ideally,
and now the Grabster points out, even though these guys
have a reputation as being very trigger happy, ideally you
want to end it peacefully, even if you're a swat team. Remember,

(18:38):
so they're getting information from the hostage negotiator, from many
hostages that may be released from their stealth guys, and
they've decided that enough enough, it's time for this guy
to go down, right, So they've assembled, they know, they've
got their plan set, they've got all the information they need,
and they go through the barricade, they go through the door.

(19:00):
What does that look like if you're standing there and
all of a sudden you're in the house. The door
opens up and incomes the swat team. What's gonna happen? Well,
first thing, first, you probably would not see ten guys
because they form what's called a snake and that's why
in the films you see in the in the picture
shows you see them in a dead straight line obviously

(19:21):
because it minimizes the you know, the targets, right, Yeah,
they can shoot at the The guy in front of
that line is called the point man. Very brave person,
very brave. But also that guy has to be as
cool as a cucumber under some of the highest amounts
of stressing human being can go through. He has to
be able to take in an entire situation in a

(19:41):
split second, decide if that's a woman holding a baby,
so don't shoot her because this isn't police academy um
or you know, if that if the guy has a gun,
if it's pointed at them, what's going on exactly? And
then act on this information in a really quick manner. Right,
I would be at the tail end of that snake.

(20:01):
If I was a sweat guy, I'd still be in
the bathroom, in the motor room. Yeah, uh what Well.
You know, also in the movies they get it right
most times is you'll see them come in in a
single file and then immediately it seems like they all
go to a designated spot in the room, almost as
if they were trained to do so. And it's because

(20:22):
they are. Yeah, they're called the areas of responsibility. Yeah,
they have it all planned out beforehand. Yeah, so you
have like eight guys and they already know the layout
of the room, where they're entering, and where the guy
has the hostages. Right, Um, they each person has a
portion of the room that they're responsible for. So the
point man comes in and maybe his dead ahead, the
guy behind him is to the right, and the little

(20:43):
corner of the guy behind him is a little beyond that.
So everybody's aiming at different parts of the room. And
then once they right exactly, once they've noticed that their
area of responsibility is clear, then they're going to train
their gun on, you know, the guy who is the problem.
And they're also we forgot to mentioned generally a lot
of yelling and screaming going on and maybe a what

(21:05):
was it called a flash bang grenade? Yeah, because one
of the things that they want to do is disorient
and confuse the suspects so you can shoot them in
the head or ideally put them on the ground and
cut them. We have to say that because that's really
what they're after. We can't just say that their kill
crazy vengeance minded thugs. No, And that's actually evidenced by

(21:29):
the percentage of um SWAT assaults that we're not a
single gunshot is fired, it's about Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah,
I bet that ten percent is pretty exciting, pretty pretty
bloody thousands of rounds of AMMO. They also point out
m or Ed does rather that when you have your
area of responsibility, you plan to sing out obviously to

(21:50):
go in and cover the room, but your point man
and actually everyone on the team is sort of like
the quarterback coming to the line of scrimmage when you
when you do at in the NFL, you see the
defense and sometimes you have to change the play because
the layout has changed or it's not exactly how you thought.
There were more guys in there than you thought. So
you don't want to be the guy who's like covering

(22:11):
your empty corner, which makes up your area of responsibility
the whole time. Yeah, you want to be Peyton manning
sure that the line of scrimmage, except you have a gun.
Can we talk about the guns? This is my favorite part,
is that you gun guy. No, neither one of us are,
but we always go all giggly when we talk about
these guns. I guess it's just being raised as kids
watching the A team and stuff like that, because I'm

(22:33):
not a gun guy at all. Both of us are
little pansy liberals. I have a penny waist done right
now now. But I love these guns. So Uh. Equipment wise, Um,
every officer has a nice, reliable, high powered handgun. First
things first, correct, Yeah, which they usually wear lower on
their leg for quick reach, and then the holsters will

(22:58):
be modified so that they can draw really fast. Although
I imagine if you're going in you already have your
gun out. I think it's technically is to look kind
of like han solo. Is that what it is? Uh?
And they also will usually have a submachine gun and
a shotgun, and clearly they're not gonna go in with
all three, but they have a great amount of leeway
with their their own personal arsenal. They can pick out

(23:19):
their own guns essentially, and a lot of times if
you look at the SWAT arsenal, Uh, it's kind of
ragtag and piecemeal. Um. Because in addition to seizing delivery vans, yes,
for drugs, they also sees weapons from drug dealers. So
one guy might have an oozy, another guy might have
an a Heckler and coke MP four or something like that.
At seven, Yeah, say something cool. I got a picture

(23:44):
for you. Oh you even have it turned over so
I couldn't. I was going to surprise you with this.
In the article, Ed talks about um shotguns are clearly
popular because you can not be too discerning with where
you're aiming and still hit something. They can. I would
think that you wouldn't want a shotgun in a swat
hostage situation. Well, it depends on the situation, so I
think that's why they picked their guns. But he pointed

(24:06):
out that sometimes you can combine the shotgun with the
machine gun. What did you see that? No, the night
Master key s And I'm gonna show you a picture
and I would love to be able to post this
on the on the blog, but look at that bad boy?
Holy cow. It is essentially if you know guns, if
you picture like an M sixteen with a clip. Right
in front of the clip is the front end of

(24:29):
a shotgun without the barrel on it attached to the gun. Right,
It's like an M sixteen with a grenade launcher attachment,
but instead of the grenade launcher has a shotgun. And
I'm anti gun, but I want that's my new zombie
defense weapon. Yeah yeah, I don't want to hurt anybody,
but this does make me wish for a zombie apocalypse.
Yeah yeah, nice one. So that's the Master key. Are

(24:52):
you going to hang that up in your cubicle. Wow,
people might think him some creep, but that's not that's
not the people not stop by your desk. Quot is
on a right bug you. We mentioned the flash band
grenades obviously, Um, if it's a riot situation, they have
all manner of non lethal things that they can shoot
at you from and would and things that will stop
you but not kill you. They use um, grappling hooks

(25:14):
and tiger claws, and now that's ninja. I get the
too confusing. Understand. Bolt action rifles are the sniper rifle
of preference, right, but they're not allowed to use fifty
millimeter or fifty caliber? Right? Is it fifty millimet Okay? Um,
these are sniper rifles that I think we've mentioned before

(25:35):
and probably the Delta Force podcast. I think we have
because I think either Special Forces or Delta Force or
both requires their snipers to be able to be accurate
with a fifty cow um sniper rifle up yards. And
why can't they use them in the private police sector
Because it will go right through your target and through

(25:59):
a couple of hostages as well. It can also go
right through walls. Check that out. Huge, that's twice as
tall as a dollar bill. Yeah, I'm showing Josh a
picture of a fifty cole round and they did a
measurement next to a ruler and it's about five and
a half inches long. Is this bullet with the casing? Obviously,
but it's enormous. It can rip very big holes and things.

(26:19):
So they don't allow them to use that because it
could potentially kill hostages, like on the street behind the house.
It could potentially kill a fruit vendor two towns over. Good.
That's not good. You want your fruit vendors alive and well.
And surveillance equipment obviously. Yeah, that pinhole camera. I mentioned

(26:40):
high power binoculars in VGs night vision goggles. Yeah, have
you ever used those? I have? Have you really? Yeah?
Did you? Were you carrying this thing? No? No, no,
My brother in laws and the Marines and he let
me wear his out in the neighborhood one night. Did
you toilet pap for your neighbor's house? No? But I
walked around and looked at stuff. It was about the
coolest thing ever. Really, did you notice anything that you

(27:01):
wouldn't normally see, like squirrels doing weird stuff? Well, not
weird stuff, but you can see in the dark, although
not complete dark. You know, they worked by amplifying available light.
But if it is complete dark, what can they use
a thermal imaging cameras. I have a story about this, Chuck.
Let's back in the turn of the last millennium. Chuck.
There's a lot of debate about whether or not police

(27:23):
departments or law enforcements should be using these thermal imaging
cameras because they said that, um, they could see right
through walls. They could. There was way too much detail.
It was just unfair and violated privacy right, And they
were using them in flyovers of suspected grow houses. But
basically you could just ride around and look right into

(27:45):
somebody's house. What, oh, marijuana grow house. Now you're hip, okay, um? Yeah,
So the law enforcement officers are saying like, no, no, no,
you can't see through houses. You can't. All you can
see is like whether there's a lot of heat coming
off of the house. Well, I found it an alternative
newspaper in East Tennessee called Washboard Weekly, and I got

(28:08):
to the bottom of this, and I found out that
I think the Union Pacific Railroads employed security cards who
had these thermal engine cameras to look for bums on board,
and I got in touch with one of these guys.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend the bumps. UM,
And I got in touch with one of these security guards,
and he was boasting about how it could see right

(28:29):
through two inch thick steel walls and cable cars. They're
not cable cars but box cars, right and um he said,
you can see everything. You can make out basically details.
These things are so good. So I correct the case. Yeah,
no one paid attention, but I figured it out that, yeah,
you law enforcement shouldn't be using those things. There were

(28:51):
twenty people in East Tennessee that were very upset as
a result of Yeah, I thought you're gonna say you
got to see it or use it or get a demo. No,
I just got to the bottom of it. That's a
little good jobs investigative reporter Josh and Chuck. That's a
pretty good segue, don't you think, Um two, I guess.

(29:11):
Accusations of overuse and overaggression of SWAT teams. Sure, there's
a lot of controversy and criticism right now over the
past you know, decade or so. UM for instance, calling
out the SWAT team to serve a warrant on a
non violent offender. Seems like it might be overkill. Yeah,
and it has been just plain old kill in several occasions. Yeah,

(29:33):
let's talk about a couple of these. And we're not
trying to blow the whistle, but these things have actually happened,
sadly in South Carolina and a high school drug grade
and SWAT team was called in to a high school
drug grade and they forged students as young as fourteen
to kneel down at gunpoint, and drugs dogs sniffed around
in their lockers and their backpacks, and they of course

(29:56):
found no drugs. I would say that overkill and misuse
of SWAT team very much. So you want to hear
another one. Uh. In two thousand six, in Maryland, UM
police rated the home of Cheryl noll Um two I
guess sees drugs from her nineteen year old son. Those

(30:20):
drugs turned out to be marijuana, just a tiny amount.
But the cops came in at four thirty in the morning.
Cheryl Noel had no idea what was going on, so
she heard somebody storming into her house and she grabbed
her registered gun and had it pointed at the floor
into in her bedroom where she was standing. The cops
kicked the bedroom door im without identifying themselves and without

(30:42):
telling her to drop the weapon. They shot her three times.
The third time was when she was already on the ground.
She was dead, and they ruled it a justifiable Yeah.
You know that happened in that old lady in Atlanta
just last year. But it wouldn't. It wasn't SWAT, that
was just regular cops. It was I think Dog was it.
And they just busted in on her and I think

(31:03):
she had a gun, right, Yeah, and acted in self
defense and they killed this old lady. She Yeah, they
shot her like seven or eight times. Verry said, I
think Red Dog got disbanded because of that. Yeah. Here's
another good one. This is my favorite one. Uh. An
optometrist at some point was shot and killed by a
SWAT team officer when the team was called out to

(31:23):
arrest him for betting on football games. Yeah, guy named
Salvator Kulosi Jr. Where was this? You know? It was
in Boston and the guy was complying. He was outside
of his house, hands up to and everything the cops
were telling him to do, and one of the SWAT
team members had a UM I think a H and
K or somebody's forty five trained on the guy's chest

(31:45):
with his finger on the trigger and accidentally shot him
in the chest and killed him for betting on NFL football. Yeah. Well,
thankfully these incidences are incidences. Is maybe incidences are few
and far between, and and I mean they the police
department in the city tends to side with their swat team.

(32:07):
They'll pay out like a million dollars for a wrongful
death or something like that. Um, But it's not really
having any impact on the use of swat teams. But
something else is Chuck, did you notice the sidebar on
the active shooter doctrine? Yes? I did. Actually, that's when
there it's like a uh, some kok goes into the
office building and start shooting people up or a school shooter. Right.

(32:29):
School school shooting is what gave rise to this, the
ninety s Columbine shooting. UM. For an hour while this
this rampage was going on, they they regular cops created
a perimeter and just stood outside of it waiting for
the swat team, which is exactly what they were supposed
to do. But no, it's not because by the time
the SWAT team finally went in, everything was over. There

(32:52):
were you know, um, I think seventeen dead and thirty
five injured. One guy bled to death in the while
while before the SWAT team made in and both shooters
had had killed themselves, right, So that gave rise to
this active shooter doctrine, which is kind of this new
school of thought that has led to new training for
just that the average patrol officer to handle this kind
of thing rather than wait for SWAT, so to act fast. Yeah,

(33:16):
and and to act tough as well. You know, I mean,
if somebody's running around shooting, you can't just call and
say we need SWAT and wait an hour. You have
to go in and kill the guy yourself neutralized, Yes, neutralized. Sorry. Um.
So that's leading to a whole new sentiment. And and
like I said, training for regular officers across the country,
which is really odd for SWAT now because they're being
relegated to just um static situations where there's like a

(33:38):
hostage and there's time, the element of time, which I
wonder how many SWAT team members are happy about this
active shooter doctrine. Yeah, seriously, it was kind of thing. Yeah,
you know if I've noticed if we say guys a lot.
We're not trying to be sexist, but most of these
creeps who take hostages and barricade and then shoot up
schools and office buildings, they're usually guys. Let's let's be

(34:00):
real here. Women are far too sensible to do something
like that. We'll put Chuck. Well, if you want to
learn more about SWAT, you can type in how SWAT
teams work in the handy search bar at how stuff
works dot com, which of course leads us now to
listener mail. Yes, Josh, I'm gonna call this Gilligan's Island reference.

(34:23):
I liked it all right. It starts out good, Um,
this is from Dan and Fort Collins. I guess it's Colorado, right, Yeah, Hi,
Chuck and Josh. Great red Dawn reference in the Honeybee episode.
I wonder how many people got that. Remember when I
said Wolverines was spray painted on the front. Yeah, wait
till we go back in time? No, no, no, people
remember it was just a couple of weeks ago. But Dan,

(34:45):
no one actually notice that except for you. So far
way to go, Dan, So you're you're on the ball. Uh.
He points out that there was a class at Gilligan's
Island episode, but weren't the all classic, he says, where
a Beatles like group, the Mosquitoes, got stranded on the island.
You remember that h was there? An was there an
episode where someone didn't get stranded on the island, even

(35:06):
Ja Ja Gabor got stranded there for reasons I can't remember.
The castaways put together two groups of competing bands, one
with the Guys, the other was the honey Bees featuring Ginger,
Marry Ann and Mrs Howell. And you can see that
on YouTube. He gives the address, but I'm sure you
can search for that if you want to see it.
When the Mosquitoes Bingo Bongo Bongo and Irving did get

(35:29):
off the island, they sighted the honey Bees and said
they had enough competition already and all. This is the
course in reference to the Honeybee cast But it leads
to this eternal question Ginger or Mary Anne. Ginger dances
Mary Anne, Marry Anne. I say, Mrs Howell, cougar central buddy.

(35:50):
Internal question. Okay, she's rich, she's old, she's experienced. I'll
go Marryanto, though I think ultimately in the long run,
definitely Marryan, although growing up as a young Baptist. It
was very conflicting. It's the the classic scenario of of

(36:11):
good girl, bad girl. Yeah, but ultimately, isn't the best
to hope for an equal a balanced mixture of the two.
Don't you want a good girl who knows how to
be a bad girl as well? So you want Ginger
and Marian? Yeah, I've got Ginger and Merry now. Uh.
And he goes on to say hi to Josh and

(36:31):
Jerry because he addressed it me. And how does Josh
manage to say how stuff works dot com in time
with the music at the end of every show? And
then he says, Oh, I get it. Jerry does that wrong?
That is just my natural timing. No, Jerry is the
secret behind this mess. We all know that. Yeah. If

(36:52):
if she even left in one beep, we would be
in big trouble. Yeah. Well, if you have a compliment
for Jerry, if you figured out that she is the
sorceress behind this entire contraption, um, kudos to you. Send
send the compliment to us in the email Bee, send

(37:12):
a compliment. See leave that in Do you see this
is what Jerry does? Send the compliment in an email
to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, is it
how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,

(37:33):
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