Rise of the Warrior Cop

Some of these agencies your talking about don't really have SWAT, more of a tactical warrant team. Just a note of interest.....NASA doesn't have a SWAT team made up of the OIG Special Agents....NASA contracts the 29-member SWAT team from Space Gateway Support LLC (since 1979).

I was on my departments SWAT team for 15 years (collateral duty) before getting off (back injury, thanks Iraq), we had to fight for a lot of the warrants we served, even when it met the threat matrix our department used. We had a policy where you couldn't just partially call out the SWAT team, it was either all or none, so....a lot of warrants were just served by the narcs, CID or Vice units.
 
Kraut783 said:
Some of these agencies your talking about don't really have SWAT, more of a tactical warrant team. Just a note of interest.....NASA doesn't have a SWAT team made up of the OIG Special Agents....NASA contracts the 29-member SWAT team from Space Gateway Support LLC (since 1979).

I was on my departments SWAT team for 15 years (collateral duty) before getting off (back injury, thanks Iraq), we had to fight for a lot of the warrants we served, even when it met the threat matrix our department used. We had a policy where you couldn't just partially call out the SWAT team, it was either all or none, so....a lot of warrants were just served by the narcs, CID or Vice units.
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Are they a true warrant-serving, hostage-rescuing, SWAT tactical team, or are they more of an asset protection/recovery team ala the DOE contractor teams at nuclear power plants?
 
When I was maybe 11 or 12 living in Orlando. I was playing in the front yard with my dog after school, I was by myself usually for a couple of hours while my dad was at work and my mom got off around 5 from her sales job at Saks Fifth Avenue. I noticed a black van in the street with blacked out windows but didn't think too much of it. My mom came home and pulled into the driveway. She was dressed professionally in her work clothes and went inside the house. A few minutes later some guy grabs me by the shoulder and told me to stay still. All I saw was like 6 fully tac't out dudes raid our suburban home and pulled my mom out, handcuffed in her panties and bra (she was in the middle of changing out of her work clothes).

Turns out some cunt four hours away in Miami was conducting fraud against senior citizens and somehow got a hold of my moms SSN and was using it on her own documents or some shit (it was forever ago please excuse the lack of an actual valid description). They didn't release my mom until two days later when they realized there was a mistake and no way my mom was in Miami when these things happened. But the level of violence that the arrest occurred - I won't ever forget it.

Good on Stamp for standing his ground, more citizens like him will maybe one day change these fucking ridiculous policies. That's all I have to say.
 
0699, I may have been a little loose on that post....I started to write an explanation of my thinking on it, but kept getting off track. I should just stick with the thought that I see little or no value in the USDA, USPS, Dept of Education and some other Federal Agencies with having tactical teams. I my minds eye, these agencies should stick to their core function and "if" they need tactical support for a warrant, use a local/county/state agency....or FBI if they want to keep it in the Federal house.
 
Arrow 4 said:
0699, I may have been a little loose on that post....I started to write an explanation of my thinking on it, but kept getting off track. I should just stick with the thought that I see little or no value in the USDA, USPS, Dept of Education and some other Federal Agencies with having tactical teams. I my minds eye, these agencies should stick to their core function and "if" they need tactical support for a warrant, use a local/county/state agency....or FBI if they want to keep it in the Federal house.
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Do they? Honest question. I don't know enough about the inner workings of those agencies to know if they do or not. According to the DOEd, they DON'T have a SWAT team.

I think there are some state/federal agencies that do need their own tactical teams due to the specialized nature of what they do; i.e. USBP or USFS on the rural side, USCG on the maritime side, etc.

Also, I see it as a problem of legal jurisdiction. AFAIK, a warrant can't just be handed off to someone else to serve. If the USPS is the only agency that is able to enforce xxUSCxxx, who else would serve the warrant?
 
As far as I'm aware dept of education doesn't have a SWAT team. That is not to say they do not have individual agents who are assigned to regional/multi agency SWAT teams.

And that can go for most federal agents, just because they officially don't claim to have a SWAT team doesn't mean they do not have smaller regional teams that are active, but not exactly "official". It only takes a little bit of equipment and training, and any group of LEOs can make a SWAT team.
 
I guess some of it comes down to what the definition of a SWAT Team is. Some will say to be a SWAT Team you must have HRT capabilities others do not...so maybe we should redefine the label for this conversation to "Tactical Team". I agree with the USBP, ICE and some others, but since the FBI has a SWAT Team why would they not serve warrants for USPS, IRS, USDA, or God forbid the Dept. of Education, etc.

As far as warrant service is concerned, we used to do warrants for ATF, DEA and other Fed agencies. I'm not saying we did all of their warrants, but on large cases where there were going to be multiple hits there might be 5, 10, 20 agencies serving warrants for one case, so jurisdiction is not an issue.
 
I think it becomes a bit odd that Dept of Ed has a warrant that requires a SWAT (tac) team of any kind. What ever happened to a couple of uniform patrol units backing up a investigator to serve a warrant?

As for the "in order to be SWAT the team must have HR capabilities" I'm not sure I agree with that. Although I know most SWAT teams include a HR in the training, and do conduct low complexity HR. Very few teams at the local level do it very well, and the teams that do do it well are normally the larger agencies with full time teams, that posses a full crises response capability.

My underlining point here: Should all SWAT teams be trained in HR? Absolutely! Do all SWAT teams have complex HR capability (such as aircraft assualt)? Nope, nor should every team have or need that capability.
 
Arrow 4 said:
I guess some of it comes down to what the definition of a SWAT Team is. Some will say to be a SWAT Team you must have HRT capabilities others do not...so maybe we should redefine the label for this conversation to "Tactical Team". I agree with the USBP, ICE and some others, but since the FBI has a SWAT Team why would they not serve warrants for USPS, IRS, USDA, or God forbid the Dept. of Education, etc.
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Does the FBI have the authority to enforce the same laws as USPS, IRS, USDA, DOEd, etc?

As far as warrant service is concerned, we used to do warrants for ATF, DEA and other Fed agencies. I'm not saying we did all of their warrants, but on large cases where there were going to be multiple hits there might be 5, 10, 20 agencies serving warrants for one case, so jurisdiction is not an issue.
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Sounds like you're a local cop...

Just to make sure I understand what you're saying. You're saying that a FLEO has handed you a federal warrant and told you "go serve this". Not a combined team, where a federal agent is being "assisted" by locals, or a OCDETF or JTTF where all involved are sworn in as FLEOs. Just a team of local cops, out serving federal warrants?
 
I would assume that the FBI has authority to enforce any Federal Law, but honestly I cannot say that I know for sure. I know that as a local cop I was bound by court orders, including arrest warrants regardless of what jurisdiction it came from within the state. It would make sense that the Federal system would operate similarly.

I am a happily retired county guy now. When I was still working on a team, we served many a search/arrest warrants for Federal agencies. To my recollection they were mostly, but not all part of large cases where they were hitting multiple locations and needed as many SWAT Teams as they could muster. Some of these were multi state investigations including an ATF case on the Hell's Angels where warrants were served in I think 5 or 6 states. We also served many warrants for the local HIDTA TF which was housed at the Sheriff's Office but funded and partially supervised by DEA/DOJ. While some of these cases went to state court, some went Federal.

On warrants for Federal agencies (Not the HIDTA group) we never served a search warrant as a "combined team" in an operational sense. We did not actually perform the "search" for evidence, we were simply there to secure the residence or business for the Detectives who followed on.

If there is a legal requirement that a Federal warrant be served by the Feds I am not aware of it, but perhaps? If so, I would say meeting those requirements got a little murky. Some of the local cops assigned to these TF's are given Federal credentials and some of the Feds are sworn in as "Deputies" of the local S.O. To be perfectly honest with you, your questions are raising issues I never really paid attention to which may have led to some false notions. What I do know is that as a SWAT guy I was happy to serve a warrant no matter who it came from.

So do you know the answer to your own questions? I'm curious now that you bring up some of these legal/jurisdictional issues.
 
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I should also note that while we routinely reviewed the search warrants from our own Detectives prior to their service, I don't recall ever seeing a copy of any of the Federal warrants we served. A copy of those warrants would be left at the scene by Detectives, not us.
 
0699 said:
Are they a true warrant-serving, hostage-rescuing, SWAT tactical team, or are they more of an asset protection/recovery team ala the DOE contractor teams at nuclear power plants?
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0699, good question, I think they are more on the line of asset protection like the DOE contractors "special police" and rely on MOU's with the local agency for full SWAT ability. But, let me find out more, friend of mine is more familiar with them.
 
Arrow 4 said:
So do you know the answer to your own questions? I'm curious now that you bring up some of these legal/jurisdictional issues.
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I do not. I know each FLEA has certain laws they are authorized to investigate and such.

Maybe we have someone here that does know.
 
Any sworn law enforcement officer can make an arrest based on a warrant, no matter the jurisdiction (minus extradition issues). Non-federal LE working on federal task forces are sworn in as special deputy U.S. marshals. In some jurisdictions, such as Arizona, the SO reciprocates the deputization. The cases that Arrow references where mulitple SWAT teams are making entries based on arrest and/or search warrants on federal cases were more than likely OCDETF round ups, tied to the FBI/DEA/ATF. Ask me how I know...then again, don't.

As for all these random federal entities having SWAT or tactical teams, I can tell you from personal experience that if they actually have them, I am apparently better at making arrests than their tactical teams as I have been requested by many of these random, weird federal LE agencies to arrest people on their behalf. If I (or others in my org) were unavailable, they would contact local or county LE. If the local or county agency used SWAT to serve that up, then that is on them...

Several of us had a discussion tonight over dinner regarding warrant service, the use of tactical teams, and the everyday LE type who likes to dress up like he's about to take down and HVT all by himself. Made for some good laughs.
 
RustyShackleford said:
Any sworn law enforcement officer can make an arrest based on a warrant, no matter the jurisdiction (minus extradition issues). Non-federal LE working on federal task forces are sworn in as special deputy U.S. marshals. In some jurisdictions, such as Arizona, the SO reciprocates the deputization. The cases that Arrow references where mulitple SWAT teams are making entries based on arrest and/or search warrants on federal cases were more than likely OCDETF round ups, tied to the FBI/DEA/ATF. Ask me how I know...then again, don't.

As for all these random federal entities having SWAT or tactical teams, I can tell you from personal experience that if they actually have them, I am apparently better at making arrests than their tactical teams as I have been requested by many of these random, weird federal LE agencies to arrest people on their behalf. If I (or others in my org) were unavailable, they would contact local or county LE. If the local or county agency used SWAT to serve that up, then that is on them...

Several of us had a discussion tonight over dinner regarding warrant service, the use of tactical teams, and the everyday LE type who likes to dress up like he's about to take down and HVT all by himself. Made for some good laughs.
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Thank you. Now I know. And like GI Joe says... :ninja:
 

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