SWAT report in dispute

Counter Analysis of
The Los Angeles Police Department SWAT Board of Inquiry
Prepared by Robert C. J. Parry
Based on the observations of the officers of LAPD SWAT
PREFACE
The SWAT Board of Inquiry report commissioned by Police Chief William Bratton is a
remarkable insult to the officers of LAPD SWAT. Its recommendations are almost
universally unsubstantiated and flow from biased, pre-conceived notions. First hand
evidence is almost non-existent.
In fact, officers interviewed for this analysis indicate the BOI spent little time at all with
SWAT, and did the absolute bare minimum in exploring SWAT. To wit, the statement
“we observed SWAT operations” is factually supported only by a single board member
having observed only a single warrant service. Yet, Bratton wants to use that sort of
“examination” to unwind procedures that have created a remarkable 35-year record of
service, during which SWAT has saved countless lives and taken precious few.
In the opinion of the SWAT officers who have read it, the SWAT Board of Inquiry report
is:
…rife with factual errors;
…blatantly disregarding of key information and SWAT’s record;
…void of any understanding of tactical practices in general or in SWAT in particular;
…biased from the word go;
…insulting to the officers of the LAPD and SWAT in specific;
…self-contradictory;
…full of unsubstantiated recommendations;
…Insulting to its readers
In the main, the recommendations counter the Board’s own evidence of SWAT’s success,
and do so without explanation or prescribed benefit. This document seeks to point out
the failures and intellectual dishonesty of the BOI report, in order to motivate the leaders
of the LAPD and the City of Los Angeles to start fresh with an honest look at SWAT.
This Counter Analysis is based on my interviews with numerous current, former and
retired LAPD SWAT officers. Their experience totals nearly 100 years in SWAT, and
more than 150 on the Department. Because of the ongoing retribution against any SWAT
officer who in anyway expresses a dissenting opinion, none has been identified herein.
Note to readers:
This report breaks down the BOI’s findings page by page, and addresses its claims headon.
Statements of the board are in plain face, responding comments from SWAT officers
are summarized in bold face. Particularly egregious, insulting or factually baseless
statements are highlighted in red. The reader is encouraged to download a copy of the
report from KFI640.com and use this as a companion piece.
--- PAGE 1 ---
STATEMENT: “It would be a serious error to read this report as either a stinging
indictment or ringing endorsement of SWAT”
COMMENT: Then why describe SWAT as a “danger” to the people of LA and
propose destroying everything that makes SWAT what it is?
--- PAGE 2 ---
BACKGROUND
STATEMENT: “Suzie Pena’s death was the first time in its 35-year history that SWAT
killed a hostage in the course of an attempted rescue:”
COMMENT: While the Coroner found a .223 caliber round killed Suzie, other experts
indicated a 9mm round (as used by Jose Pena) might have been the cause. Moreover,
Suzie is the only hostage – ever – known to have been lost by SWAT at all. The BOI’s
statement misrepresent this nearly perfect record.
STATEMENT: (Quoting Bratton:) We need to understand intimately what happened in
that incident.”
COMMENT: In fact, the Board made no attempt to learn what happened, intimately
or otherwise.
STATEMENT: We… observed SWAT operations
COMMENT: Officers interviewed reported seeing only LT Hansen of Sheriff’s SEB
during the board’s inquiries, at a single warrant service.
--- PAGE 3 ---
STATEMENT: (Quoting Bratton:) “I’m looking to create change within SWAT
COMMENT: For no particular reason.
STATEMENT: (Quoting Bratton:) “…there are … few African Americans”
COMMENT: This is absolutely false. At the time of the report, 10 of 63 officers
(about 16%) were black. Currently, 8 of 63 are (12.7%). As a whole, the LAPD is
12.1% African American.
STATEMENT: (Quoting Bratton:) “In some entities, I have deferred to a sergeant for
expertise. But, I can’t do this… I don’t want sergeants with more leeway, more decision
making power, than my command staff”
COMMENT: SWAT Team Leaders (PIII + 1s) have done hundreds of entries. Why
should they trust the decisions on which they base their lives to rank-laden
politicians who know nothing of tactics?
--- PAGE 5 ---
STATEMENT: “A large debt of gratitude is owed to Chief Hillman”
COMMENT: So, why’d you misspell Chief Hillmann’s name throughout the report?
STATEMENT: “None the less, there are improvements to be made”
COMMENT: Funny, none of what’s listed has any substantive, factual or statistical
support, aside from Monday Morning Quarterbacking.
--- PAGE 7 ---
FOOTNOTE 1: “Lawyers defending law enforcement are often skittish about a client
recording detailed information and analysis which could prove useful to plaintiffs in
subsequent litigation. In our view, the lawyer’s perspective is not the only one a
responsible executive should consider.”
COMMENT: So, SWAT should ignore the potential millions of dollars in liability
from law suits and instead write everything down to lower the rate it which it kills
suspects to less than 1%? Oh, that’s right - it already is less than 1%.
--- PAGE 9 ---
STATEMENT: SWAT operations have, on occasion, gone wrong, but its supporters
argue those instances were isolated, and not reflective of systemic problems
COMMENT: And the board offers not a shred of evidence to the contrary.
STATEMENT: Suspects were apprehended without untoward incident in 83% of (callouts).
COMMENT: The report provides no evidence of any SWAT team having better
figures. The report does not define “untoward.”
STATEMENT: Of 134 fatalities in 3371 incidents, 80 incidents, or 60% represent suicides.
In 31 incidents, 23%, suspects were killed by SWAT
COMMENT: The 31 killed by SWAT represent less than 1% of all incidents.
Remarkably the report doesn’t mention this. Moreover, these numbers show that
suspects are almost THREE TIMES AS LIKELY to commit suicide, as dies at SWAT’s
hand.
STATEMENT: “The board perceives that SWAT has become insular, self-referential and
resistant to change”
COMMENT: Yet, the Board does not identify a single instance where a suggestion
for improvement has been rejected out of hand without some basis in logic and/or
experience. In fact, the Board actually adopted certain key requests that SWAT has
made for years. The Board participated in none of SWAT’s training events with other
departments or military units. Apparently, SWAT is less averse to outside input in
their processes than are East Coast attorneys – and the attorneys aren’t betting their
lives on the results of that input.
--- PAGE 10 ---
STATEMENT: There’s a concern about the military-like mind-set within SWAT…. I also
agree with the issue about the military mind-set that infuses SWAT and Metro.
COMMENT: What’s the concern? Where’s the evidence of the problem? And what
exactly is wrong with a military mind-set?
STATEMENT: “Each major SWAT operation in the country is, to one degree or another,
an offspring of LA SWAT. While imitation may be the highest form of flattery, the Board
found that the degree of imitation made comparisons to other SWAT operations largely
meaningless.
COMMENT: No other SWAT unit has found a better way to do things than LAPD
SWAT. So, instead of taking this as evidence that SWAT is a gold standard, it is
rejected out of hand – why? Because it provides no evidence to support the Board’s
pre-conceived notions, it can’t possibly be valid?
--- Page 11 ---
STATEMENT: “No one on SWAT seemed to know anyone inside or outside SWAT who
was critical of its operations; for example:
Board member: Who is your most credible critic?”
Officer: “Other than ourselves, I’m not sure. I’m not big on critics.”
COMMENT: In most organization, being one’s toughest critic is regarded as a
strength. And since when does the statement of one officer represent a statistically
valid sample reflecting the overall organization?
STATEMENT: … have reinforced undesirable tendencies in SWAT culture
COMMENT: The report names absolutely no such tendencies.
STATEMENT: Over-reliance on tactical operations over negotiated settlements
COMMENT: The report names no tactical unit that uses negotiation more than
SWAT.
STATEMENT: “A practice of using negotiators in a secondary role as agents of the
tacticians.”
COMMENT: Tactical and negotiation are melded as one in SWAT. SWAT’s
tacticians are the negotiators. There is no competition, and, in fact, many SWAT
officers regard specific negotiated settlements among their most satisfactory missions.
Regardless of who ends an incident, SWAT always wins.
--- Page 12 ---
STATEMENT: “skepticism... about the skill and expertise of managers and supervisors”
COMMENT: If you’ve done a job for a decade, and your supervisor and managers
had never done it, hadn’t been schooled in it, and had no knowledge of it, wouldn’t
you be skeptical of their skill and expertise? Perhaps because they have none?
STATEMENT: “SWAT culture and insularity pose a certain danger to the LAPD and the
Los Angeles community as a whole.”
COMMENT: SWAT is a danger to Los Angeles? Really?
II. ISSUES PRESENTED IN THE PRECEPT PAPER
COMMENT: These issues cover approximately 6 incidents out of more than 400 over
about four years – barely 1.5%. In general, the involved officers were not
interviewed. These incidents represent Monday Morning Quarter-Backing of the
worst variety. Most importantly, in these six incidents, five of the suspects were
captured alive, the exception being a suspect who was attacking an officer with two
knives and was within five feet of him when killed – after use of a less-lethal round.
A. Selection Process for SWAT
STATEMENT: “The Board unanimously concluded that the absence of women in SWAT
and the low number of African Americans need to be addressed and dealt with… The
absence of Women at any level within SWAT is a cause for concern. There is no task in
SWAT that a woman could not perform.”
COMMENT: 1) The number of African Americans in SWAT is greater, as a
percentage, than in the LAPD as a whole. Exactly how many more should there be? 2)
Not every woman could extract 200 pounds of Jimmy Veenstra from that gunfight in
Winnetka. What are we supposed to tell his wife when he gets shot again because a
110-pound woman couldn’t move him under fire?
--- PAGE 13 ---
STATEMENT: The drawbacks of using Metro (as the sole source of SWAT candidates)
include the exclusion of qualified candidates outside of Metro who could bring a wider
perspective and greater gender and racial diversity.
COMMENT: Why does SWAT need greater racial diversity? The board makes
absolutely no factual statements regarding SWAT’s racial diversity, and only cites
Bratton’s LIE in regard to the absence of African Americans on the team. As for
gender diversity, any officer (woman or man) who can’t get into Metro will not
achieve SWAT’s standards (unless you eliminate those standards – which is exactly
what Bratton has done).
STATEMENT: The LAPD presented to the Board several advocates and supporters of
the selection criteria and emphasized that such criteria were validated 10 years ago [by
LA City’s Personnel Department.] The Board was not presented with anyone espousing
contrary views. There was questioning how valid the criteria could be, since SWAT has
never had a woman in its ranks.
COMMENT: Yet the Board took a contrary view ANYWAY! How does the absence of
women in any way indicate that the selection criteria are unrelated to the tasks
demanded of a SWAT officer? That is completely illogical.
--- Page 14 ---
STATEMENT: Selection criteria under-emphasized negotiating skills, patience, empathy
and flexibility while over-emphasizing physical prowess and tactical acumen.
COMMENT: Physical prowess is key to holding a weapon steady when trying to
shoot a suspect and not a hostage, as in 104th & Avalon (Suzie Pena) incident that this
report supposedly evaluates. Tactical acumen is key to hostage rescue. Physical
prowess is key to pulling a wounded officer out of a house in a gun fight. Those
things CANNOT be over-emphasized. The stress of the tests also tests mental
flexibility. SWAT’s record of resolving incidents without “untoward incident” 83%
of the time (to quote this report) speaks well of its empathy, patience and negotiating
skills. Moreover, a handful of key individuals with those skills – in fact, just one –
can resolve an incident peacefully. If a tactical solution is required, all present will
need the highest level of physical, tactical and mental preparation. Finally,
negotiation skills are practiced by the team as a whole on a regular basis. The report
completely disregards – in fact it insults – this dedication.
STATEMENT: Board members saw the expansion of D Platoon by the relatively rapid
additional (sic) 12-18 persons selected department wide as a useful step not only to
expand coverage but also to bring diversity and fresh perspectives.
COMMENT: That would at least triple the rate at which new members are usually
added to the team. In general, new operators do not execute entries for the first 12
months they are on the team, as this is a training and preparation period to fully
integrate them. Is the platoon supposed to start doing entries with teams made up
largely of new officers who really do not know what they are doing, what others on
the team will do or how the team operates? This is not taught in a class at SWAT
School, it is learned over time. This recommendation ignores everything that has
made SWAT the tactically, functionally excellent unit that it is with an almost
unblemished record.
STATEMENT: “… gender and racial diversity need not and should not be sacrificed in
any selection process.
COMMENT: The only thing SWAT discriminates against in an inability to perform
extremely demanding tasks. This report provides no racial breakdown of SWAT
because it would serve only to show how dishonest the board is.
TRAINING AND POLICY DEVELOPMENT
STATEMENT: The Board found that the content of the training of SWAT was consistent
with SWAT’s mission as currently conceived.
COMMENT: Selection is based on the training. If the training is fine, why is
selection so horribly wrong?
--- Page 15 ---
1. Dealing with persons in an over-excited state.
STATEMENT: Unless it has reason to believe an individual is suicidal, SWAT, more
often than one might like, but by no means always, hastily concludes that negotiations
are or would be fruitless.
COMMENT: Could the board possibly have provided a more vague, meaningless
statement. Is that once? And in whose opinion? And who does a better job? What
model is the Board looking at? None of this is mentioned, which must lead a logical
evaluator to conclude there was none.
STATEMENT: In the cases discussed below, SWAT appeared to rush things or have
exacerbated the volatility of persons in an overly excited state rather than waiting for
them to calm down….
COMMENT: These cases represent less than 2% of all SWAT missions over four
years. The Board is not known to have interviewed any of the involved officers. How
the board reached any conclusions about these incidents is a mystery to SWAT.
FOOTNOTE 7: … has produced impressive results in Memphis and Seattle, among other
places.
COMMENT: What are the chances that the Seattle Assistant Chief on the Board
wrote that sentence herself?
FOOTNOTE 9: Reasonable people can differ over the merits of SWAT’s actions in each
of these cases. Accordingly, no useful purpose is served in becoming mired in a debate
about what should or could have happened in these cases.
COMMENT: If reasonable people can disagree, how can the Board find there was
any error? No useful purpose in the discussion? Does that mean dissenters should
just shut-up and do as you say? Clearly, board is admitting its conclusions are
vacuous, meaningless and absent any factual foundation. How does the Board
identify “trends or patterns” when it just said that reasonable people may find
nothing wrong? Does SWAT have a pattern of doing nothing wrong?
Rodriguez
COMMENT: This woman attacked those officers with a knife and they had numerous
opportunities, by policy, to kill her. They did everything possible to take this woman
safely into custody – and they did!
--- Page 18 ---
STATEMENT: SWAT might better have simply waited her out, albeit that might have
taken several hours more. There appeared to be no moment when a lieutenant or other
supervisor called a time-out to reconsider strategy in light of Mrs. Rodriguez’s ongoing
apparent intransigence and SWAT’s ineffectiveness. If so, it may be that the team leader
had too much decision making power and was essentially unsupervised.
COMMENT: 1) Or, they might not. But, don’t let facts get in the way of preconceived
notions. 2) There was no way to “call time out” once the engagement
began. Pulling out would have given her more opportunity to harm officers, forcing a
lethal use of force. Wearing her down with less-lethal options eventually successfully
resulted in her safe surrender (damned facts, getting in the way again). 3) The team
leader in this case had more than a decade of SWAT experience. Nobody has ever
gained that much insight, experience or understanding simply by sewing chevrons on
their sleeve.
STATEMENT: The board learned of law enforcement agencies that would not send
SWAT at all to an incident like this. A negotiating team would be dispatched alone or
with trained mental health professionals to handle the mentally disturbed subject.
COMMENT: Then who would take her in to custody if/when a tactical intervention
became necessary? Regular patrol officers’ limited options would almost certainly
have resulted in her death. SWAT regularly works with the LAPD’s SMART mental
health teams. Note that on Page 28, at another incident, Behavioral Science Services
(BSS, the department psychologists) were actively involved in the negotiation. The
above report makes no mention of their role. An oversight or intentional omission?
--- Page 19 ---
Hernandez
COMMENT: SWAT officers interviewed felt that this recitation of the incident badly
misrepresented the facts. “If yelling ‘F--- You, come kill me’ counts as negotiation,
then I guess the patrol cops were negotiating with him. They did everything we could
to take that kid alive.” Again, remember, this case is but one of 100 from the year
2003.
--- Page 21 ---
STATEMENT: The SWAT lieutenant apparently did not know or did not choose to find
out that O and G had held a peaceful two-hour conversation with Hernandez.
COMMENT: And the Board apparently did not choose to ask the SWAT Lieutenant,
because it does not know. But, again, who needs facts when writing a pre-conceived
conclusion? This is yet another baseless allegation, based on conjecture which any
responsible board could have established with facts.
--- Page 23 ---
FOOTNOTE 14: There should have been pre-planning so that the less lethal weapon
could be fired and its results evaluated before the gun was fired.
COMMENT: The board apparently failed arithmetic in elementary school. The less
lethal weapon was fired three times and the shotgun was fired twice. The extra lesslethal
round was the one that was evaluated. This suspect closed a 10-foot gap in two
seconds. Had there been no coordination, both weapons would have fired three times
– or the shotgun more than the less-lethal. But, that is not the case. If the board’s
make-up had even a modicum tactical experience, this would be plainly obvious.
--- Page 24 ---
STATEMENT: To be sure, there are counter examples.
FOOTNOTE 15: Corte is but one example….
COMMENT: The board specifically cites five cases that went well, but draws its
conclusions – “trends ,” it claims – from a single incident that apparently, possibly,
might not have gone as best possible – and about which (it already said) reasonable
people might disagree.
--- Page 27 ---
STATEMENT: This appears to be a case for using a negotiator with a track record for
having brought violent and angry men under control
COMMENT: What was the negotiator’s record? Oh, that little detail isn’t discussed.
But, we know 83% of SWAT call-outs with the likes of Mr. Jannsen end peacefully.
GENERAL COMMENT: Jannsen was violent and very drunk and trying to get
himself killed. He was taken alive, with a minimum of force. Given what he tried, a
broken finger seems like a great trade-off. We could have simply waited until he shot
himself, or came out shooting.
--- Page 29 ---
Srichandra
GENERAL COMMENT: Absolutely, stunning. Criticizing officers for returning fire
at a suspect who was shooting at them? This suspect did everything possible to get
himself killed, yet he was taken into custody alive – after SWAT saved his house from
burning down with him – and SWAT - in it. That’s not reckless disregard for life, it is
heroism.
--- Page 30 ---
STATEMENT: SWAT would have been advised … to have introduced a seasoned
negotiator who had previously reached peaceful resolutions with hostage takers and
violent and mentally disturbed individuals.
COMMENT: What was this negotiator’s record? Again, not revealed. And the 83%
stat is again ignored. And what about BSS? Are they not the “experts” who advised
he was suicidal?
STATEMENT: …SWAT officers need substantial training on dealing with individuals in
heightened emotional states.
COMMENT: The SWAT officers tend to concur that additional training in dealing
with mentally ill suspects is always beneficial. In fact, all police officers (even those
in Seattle) would benefit from this. SWAT’s use of SMART and BSS assets in these
situations provides additional expertise. No 14-day school from any law enforcement
organization can substitute for a PhD in psychology, and we do not pretend to be
experts.
COMMENT: This may prove beneficial. However, how does the board plan for us to
integrate 18 new members, maintain our own skills, expand training in mentally ill
individuals when THE BOARD recommends cutting back our training. This
recommendation alone reveals the intellectually hollow nature of this report.
FOOTNOTE 21: … SWAT may have thought it had been given a Hobson’s choice….”
COMMENT: Had SWAT delayed and sent in a robot, Srichandra may have bled to
death in the interim. SWAT’s action’s preserved his life for at least a few hours. Had
he not been facing numerous ailments, he may well have lived through the ordeal.
--- Page 31 ---
STATEMENT: “In each of these instances, mental illness was not actively and
adequately taken into account in formulating an operational plan.”
COMMENT: Not taken into account? SWAT acted in accordance with the
department psychologist’s guidance!!!!!!
--- Page 31 ---
Perez
GENERAL COMMENT:! The Board missed the whole boat on this, and omitted
numerous important facts.! The incident began with a kidnapping for ransom that
involved a gun.! SWAT was on scene for three hours before making entry.! The
suspects refused numerous commands to show their hands, and we had good reason
to believe a weapon was involved. Perez was not struck directly in the eye. He was hit
by a ricochet, and a Rescue Ambulance was summoned immediately.
STATEMENT:! The SWAT Lieutenant later allegedly ordered that Messrs. Chai, Ramirez
and Perez be charged with resisting arrest.
COMMENT: It was the Force Investigation Division lieutenant who ordered the
arrests, not the SWAT lieutenant. Again, the Board did not discuss this with the
officer in question.
!
--- Page 34 ---
STATEMENT: Assistant Chief Gascon disagreed and Chief Bratton adopted his minority
opinion.
COMMENT: As did his hand-picked Board. There’s a shocker.
STATEMENT: Chief Gascon also found it was unreasonable to assume that the
individuals were armed and reaching for weapons particularly sine there was!no
witness testimony that there were weapons present.
COMMENT: Witness testimony after the fact has nothing to do with officer mindset
at the time of the incident. In fact, we were working a kidnapping for ransom in
which a gun had reportedly been used. We had every reason to believe the suspects
were armed.
--- Page 37-39 ---
Torres
GENERAL COMMENT: The board’s account uses the word “claim” as though there
was doubt the gang members involved actually pulled guns. Never mind Winnifel
was pointing an Uzi at the officers.
GENERAL COMMENT: In discussions after the event, it was agreed a more
comprehensive plan with alternate suspect action scenarios would have been useful.
However, that would not have changed the outcomes. Torres knew he was caught
when the roll-up opened, and he knew it was the police, given the uniforms. He tried
to shoot it out and lost.
GENERAL COMMENT: Nine officers fired fewer than three rounds each. Just one of
four armed suspects was killed, and he continued pointing his weapon well after
being shot the first time. This was an extremely controlled, deliberate use of force
against violent gang members who would happily have killed the entire team.
--- Page 39 ---
STATEMENT: Given the high probability in this scenario that shots would be fired, it is
had to understand why officers other than the designated sharpshooters would be
allowed to shoot.
COMMENT: Perhaps because there were twice as many of them as “sharp shooters?”
Perhaps because there’s no rule that we have to let them point guns at us and shoot
first?
C. Training Versus Suppression
--- Page 40 ---
STATEMENT: Although sympathetic to the arguments that SWAT could benefit from
new training related to counterterrorism and from refresher training on traditional
SWAT skills, the Board understands Chief Bratton’s sharp focus on crime suppression….
COMMENT: The Board has already recommended a number of new training foci and
initiatives that will require extensive training. Now it wants to cut training, too.
Perhaps the more accurate statement here would be, “the board is writing what Chief
Bratton told us to, without regard to facts or realities.”
--- Page 42 ---
STATEMENT: “It helps SWAT remember their roots, and it helps patrol see that SWAT
officers are willing to role (sic) up their sleeves.”
COMMENT: That’s right, SWAT officers forget that we are police officers. We forget
that we put handcuffs on suspects, the same as patrol. And patrol doesn’t really think
we do any dirty work. That’s why they call us when they have problems they can’t
handle. Amazing. Simply amazing.
STATEMENT: “In a controversial case from the Summer of 2005, a suspect was holding
his two daughters hostage.”
GENERAL COMMENT: Gee, that sounds an awful lot like the Suzie Pena case that
this Board is supposedly investigating.
STATEMENT: “The rescue although ultimately successful, raised serious questions
regarding the tactics and training for a mission of that complexity by patrol.”
COMMENT: Maybe the LAPD ought to create a team with Special Weapons and
Tactics for that sort of situation?
COMMENT: Police work is not about training for all possible scenarios. It is about
be prepared to flex around various challenges and solve them. All officers are trained
in extraction and rescue techniques. A locked fence is just one of a million potential
complexities.
COMMENT: Now the board not only wants SWAT to train less and patrol more, it
wants patrol to train more and patrol less. And it wants SWAT to train them? Did
these people even read their own report?
--- Page 43 ---
D. Coverage
GENERAL COMMENT: There may well be benefits of having a SWAT presence on a
round-the-clock basis, as illustrated by the Pena case and the off-duty call-out
statistics. However, doing so risks cutting already limited training time. SWAT has
been down this road before. In preparing for the 1984 Olympics, we took on an
“Odd/Even” structure, with one group working and the other training. Before long,
as members swapped in and out, we discovered that we’d begun doing things ever so
slightly different. It is those slight differences that make all the difference in the
world, especially when entering a room to save an infant while under fire.
The team trains as a whole so its members are interchangeable from one
element to another, much as was needed in Winnetka. This is not a matter of
regulation or policy, but intuitive knowledge of what each other will do. This comes
from observing exactly the same thing and learning by direct observation of the same
point. It is this training and these techniques that have limited the deaths of suspects,
hostages and officers to tiny fractions of our total incidents.
Putting SWAT officers on fire department or patrol shift schedules, where one
element sees the other only to hand-off the keys will limit this interaction and
ultimately increase casualties. It should also be remembered that Los Angeles is 60
miles end to end (something the East Coast bias of the Board would not appreciate).
There will always be a delay in SWAT response.
The decision to distribute cars to all SWAT officers, while not a perfect
solution (and one that has some of its own drawbacks) significantly addresses that
concern.
--- Page 44 ---
STATEMENT: “The Board was shocked to learn that a SWAT officer called out off-duty
had to go pick up his partner before responding to a call.”
COMMENT: SWAT had requested individual take-home cars for many years,
including under the current chief, and were rejected each time. This is one of the few
excellent ideas in this report.
STATEMENT: “The rapid introduction of 12 new officers selected from the department
as a whole could significantly impact SWAT’s current insular and male-dominated
culture.
COMMENT: Male-dominate culture? Is the Board proposing that more than half of
SWAT should be female?
STATEMENT: “SWAT needs fresh faces and fresh perspectives.”
COMMENT: Again the Board offers not a single example or scintilla of evidence to
substantiate this statement. There is not a single example of a new opportunity or
technique being rejected out of hand.
--- Page 45 ---
E. Rotation
STATEMENT: Ten or 15 years is ample time to attain high-levels of experience.
COMMENT: Most SWAT officers regard 10 years as the minimum to move into
leadership positions within the team. The Board provides absolutely no metrics to
the contrary.
STATEMENT: “SWAT’s culture, with which many Board members are uncomfortable, is
self-perpetuating.”
COMMENT: The Board, again, offers not a single shred of evidence as to what
benefit this would inject into SWAT, aside from it will be different. In fact, it is the
benefit of having 20+ years of experience on the ground at a given event that provides
SWAT its remarkable record of success.
--- Page 46 ---
STATEMENT: To the extent that financial incentives keep team leaders and other good
officers in SWAT rather than seeking promotion to sergeant elsewhere in the
department, a re-ordering of incentives may be in order.
COMMENT: That’s right. We’re in this for the money. Could this possibly get any
more insulting?
F. Lessons learned, risk management and documentation
STATEMENT: SWAT urgently requires computers, software and additional support
staff so the SWAT managers have the data and analysis in hand, in close to real time, to
properly manage risk and the SWAT operation as a whole.
COMMENT: While computerization of some data may prove useful, the Board
provides absolutely no evidence of benefit from this. Not one decision that would be
reversed, not one life that could have been saved. The Board, having failed to actually
work with SWAT, completely fails to understand that each situation is discrete and
different. Statistics are meaningless in the calculus of distressed human behavior and
tactical response.
--- Page 47 ---
STATEMENT: Ideally, COMPSTAT will contain all the data necessary for a unit
commander to manage the risk of crime and for executives to judge the unit
commanders competence in doing so.
COMMENT: COMPSTAT has proven to be a useful tool for anti-crime strategy.
SWAT is a tactical element, not a strategic one. They are utterly meaningless in
relation to one another. It’s not an
STATEMENT: (Among the risks to be considered are the following:) … Does or does not
SWAT fail to make effective use of negotiation?
COMMENT: Amazing. The previous 46 pages have insisted that SWAT does not
negotiate enough and is too quick to go tactical. Now the authors admit they have
absolutely no data with which to reach that conclusion, and recommends SWAT set
about finding it. The data insufficiency may well be worth addressing, but if this
point is to be taken seriously, the vast majority of the remainder of this document
should be discarded.
STATEMENT: Is or is not SWAT’s use of force causing unnecessary and avoidable death
and injury?
COMMENT: The necessity of an injury or death is entirely a matter of the
circumstances of a given incident, the actions of that suspect and the decision making
process of that officer. Statistics for such things are fine on a macro-comparative
basis, but each SWAT event is hyper scrutinized by the team itself and investigated
by the LAPD’s numerous cross-checking entities. Additionally, SWAT uses force so
rarely as to render comparisons wildly meaningless. Worse, driving decision making
by numbers could prove fatal (“well, no we can’t go in, even though he’s away from
the hostage, we need to get our tactical initiations rate below last year’s average”).
--- Page 48 ---
STATEMENT: Is or is not SWAT’s use of force causing unnecessary and avoidable death
and injury?
COMMENT: The necessity of an injury or death is entirely a matter of the
circumstances
STATEMENT: After action reports do not provide an adequate basis for critical analysis
of those incidents…. There is no explanation of the reason why force was used… They
suggest that warrant service is given a cursory after-the-fact-review, if at all.
COMMENT: Uses of force are captured in numerous other LAPD forms and reports.
More paperwork is not needed. Moreover, that only creates opportunity for the story
to be told slightly differently, thus exposing the City to liability (not that the Board
cares – see page 7).
COMMENT: Every SWAT operation is fully reviewed and de-briefed. This statement
is proof positive of the Board’s complete failure to examine or explore SWAT in any
substantive manner. If all of the Board members had gone on just a couple of
operations, they would know fully well that EVERY operation – warrant or otherwise
– is fully debriefed by the entire team. This sentence alone is the most damning
indictment of this report to those who know and work with SWAT, and reveals what
a façade of effort went into this document.
STATEMENT: (in re: Torres incident). The warrant summary had none of the detail
necessary for SWAT supervisors to make a judgment call about the incident…. As well
as the wisdom of using SWAT to perform this operation in the first place.
COMMENT: Who else does the Board think should be used to enter a house in
search of victims and/or suspects from an armed kidnapping for ransom? Who else is
supposed to handle a potential hostage situation?
--- Page 49 ---
STATEMENT: There was no explanation about why force was necessary…. The after
action report did not serve as a basis for meaningful review of the incident.
COMMENT: Here the Board reveals its complete lack of familiarity with LAPD
procedure. All of this information is capture elsewhere – use of force reports, etc.
These reports serve as an internal review tool, and thus only provide the basis for
discussion. If additional detail is needed, other department documents can be sought.
--- Page 50 ---
GENERAL COMMENT: These recommendations do nothing but create more
paperwork. Given that the Board did not review a single After Action Review, it is
impossible for them to make any honest assertion as to SWAT’s procedures or
effectiveness (thus far however, integrity does not seem to have been the Board’s
strong point). There may, however, be value in assigning an administrative aid to
gather all relevant documents from each call-out to compile more complete packages
of existing documents for detailed review when the need arises (such as during after
action reviews).
--- Page 51 ---
F. Command-and-control issues
STATEMENT: Every witness stated that patrol always retains incident command.
FOOTNOTE 32: “… as we have recommended, there should be a highly trained cadre of
incident commanders who can independently decide whether a SWAT recommendation
should be adopted.”
COMMENT: The Board insults the integrity of every SWAT officer by insinuating
that they lied to the board and that SWAT does not respect patrol. What should this
highly trained cadre consist of? Seasoned officers with experience negotiating
hundreds – preferably thousands - of incidents? Managers who have been on the
CNT, patrol and tactical side of things? Or, should this independence mean that the
SWAT officers’ decades of experience in all three elements should be evaluated as
just another component of the decision, having no weight or importance?
--- Page 52 ---
STATEMENT: “The Board also received testimony that in such instances, once a
sharpshooter takes a shot, a rapid and automatic dynamic entry is immediately initiated.
The practical (and undesirable) effect of such arrangements is that command and
control, and the decision to initiate action bypass the Incident Commander, the Metro
Captain and the SWAT lieutenant and go directly to a team leader.”
COMMENT: Here again, the Board clearly demonstrates its complete lack of
understanding of tactical matters here. Since the case referenced is the Pena case
(though the Board some how wants to omit this), let’s consider those circumstances.
Once the shot was taken, there was little possibility of a peaceful resolution. Pena
would either remain inside or immediately kill Suzie and/or himself (in fact, to date,
it remains entirely possible that he did kill Suzie). Had the entry team waited for an
order to go through three levels of command – none of whom had eyes on the door or
Jose Pena - and come back down he may well have killed her. The only hope she
had was for that team to initiate immediate action.
GENERAL COMMENT: As it has throughout this report, the Board somehow
assumes that pinning silver on a person’s collar equips them with better decision
making skills than decades of experience negotiating with suspects, entering and
clearing rooms and using SWAT tactics and equipment. SWAT’s nearly spotless
record to date has been built on the decisions of these team leaders. The Board, as
usual, offers absolutely no evidence that changing this practice would improve any
outcome of any incident - least of all the Suzie Pena case.
STATEMENT: “Additionally, it puts too great a burden on team leaders to both
formulate a plan and execute it.”
COMMENT: That technique has worked for 35 years. Why change it now?
Moreover, who is in a better position to create the plan than those who have to
execute it – and live with its consequences? This system creates tremendous
accountability and reduces finger pointing. The Board, by failing to interact with
SWAT operationally, completely failed to understand this. However, their lack of
respect for the intelligence and abilities of SWAT team leaders is shocking.
--- Page 53 ---
STATEMENT: “In other words, even if an individual officer may be legally justified in
taking a shot, he should not do so, absent truly extraordinary circumstances, unless
directed by a lieutenant....”
COMMENT: The Board reflects its complete lack of understanding of both tactical
matters in general and LAPD SWAT in particular. Officers do not fire just because
they are allowed to, but, in act, because they need to. The Board offers no example of
any time that an officer has used deadly force when other options were legitimately
available. In fact, LAPD SWAT officers have resisted innumerable opportunities to
use force over the years, as evidenced by the fact that they’ve killed less than 1% of all
suspects.
STATEMENT: “Moreover, it should be the job of the lieutenant, not the team leader, to
decide where to place an officer…”
COMMENT: The Board insults the intelligence and expertise of the Team Leaders
and ignores three decades of remarkable success under the present structure.
--- Page 54 ---
STATEMENT: “… SWAT should none-the-less reduce the circumstances under its
control which cause officers to act without due supervision…”
COMMENT: P2s six months out of the academy are expected to act without
supervision, but the most highly trained and experienced officers in the department
should not? Do they need babysitters, too?
STATEMENT: “… once an action is initiated, there are no time-outs or reconsideration
of strategy, even if SWAT’s tactics are proving an effective (sic) (assumed to mean
ineffective’).
COMMENT: That’s right. There’s no time out. Generally, deranged suspects with
knives and guns don’t accept a time out to evaluate the situation. Once action is
initiated, it has to be taken to completion.
--- Page 55 ---
STATEMENT: “I like the sergeant being there. It establishes fire arms control.”
COMMENT: So a sergeant is expected to have his finger on the trigger of each
weapon? The Board AGAIN reveals its complete lack of understanding of tactics.
STATEMENT: “All of these recommendations flow from the Board’s perception that too
much power, authority and discretion have been reposed in team leaders.”
COMMENT: How did the Board develop this perception? None of them participated
in any SWAT operations, save one warrant service. This conclusion could not
possibly be more intellectually groundless.
STATEMENT: “SWAT should …. Shift the balance of decision making from team
leaders and operators to Sergeants….”
COMMENT: So, tactical decision making should shift from officers who have done
this a thousand times in operations and training to supervisors who got their moral
authority by sewing cloth on their sleeve? There clearly is a role for supervision and
sergeants within SWAT, but that should be limited by their experience and expertise.
Looking at the example of the Army’s Green Berets, a Captain might be in charge of a
team, but he knows that the professionalism and experience of his NCOs are the keys
to success, because they have done it over and over for years. Rank does not make the
best decision making equipment.
STATEMENT: “Although the majority of SWAT callouts lead to safe and appropriate
conclusions, those at the margins might have come out better had less unguided
discretion devolved to team leaders and operators.”
COMMENT: The Board offers not a single instance where a supervisor or manager
would have made a different decision, yet it concludes some incidents “at the margins
might have come out better.” The Board completely ignores the implication that
difficult situations which were resolved “without untoward incident” might have
ended poorly had inexperienced, lightly trained supervisors with no understanding
of tactics been in charge.
--- Page 56 - 57 ---
H. Weapons
GENERAL COMMENT: The Board says it is disinclined to make judgments about
weapons selection (finally, they seem to realize some of the depth of their ignorance)
yet proceeds to detail how weapons should be used. What arrogance.
I. Negotiation
STATEMENT: “Negotiators and SWAT members should be on separate teams in the
opinion of nearly all Board members.”
COMMENT: The Board offers not a single iota of evidence why this would improve
anything. The Board offers no examples of stress between negotiators and tactical
operators (who, by the way, are one in the same). The Board showed absolutely no
instance where a different outcome might have been achieved – or evidence that it
would have been an improvement. The LASD statistics have no bearing on the
SWAT situation. SWAT tacticians are the LAPD negotiators. Just because SEB’s CNT
handles some incidents without tacticians on the ground does not mean they would
have done any harm. In this recommendation, the Board reveals its bias against
highly trained tacticians, and thus its fundamental misunderstanding of SWAT. The
Board has these misperceptions because it never made any effort to understand what
SWAT does on the ground a hundred times a year.
--- Page 58 ---
STATEMENT: “The East Coast model also puts negotiators on an even footing with the
tacticians”
COMMENT: HOGWASH! In fact, this model does the exact opposite. At the time of
this report, LAPD SWAT’s most senior negotiator was also one of its most senior
tacticians. The LAPD negotiator/tactician “footing” is exactly equal because they are
physically the same individuals. The Board cites no examples of tension between the
two entities because there is none. Yet another inconvenient truth the Board failed to
uncover.
STATEMENT: “negotiators more often serve the tacticians rather than challenge them”
COMMENT: SWAT’s negotiators ARE the tacticians. What is there to challenge?
STATEMENT: The new negotiation platoon “having as its over-riding priority the
preservation of human life.”
COMMENT: This sentence was regarded universally as insulting by all SWAT
officers.
--- Page 59 ---
STATEMENT: “This platoon should undergo rigorous and frequent training in conflict
resolution negotiation, psychology…”
COMMENT: SWAT ALREADY DOES THIS!!!!! What SWAT team did this Board
actually evaluate? Why was this report sent to LAPD?
J. Discipline
GENERAL COMMENT: This paragraph is repeatedly self-contradictory. It states no
SWAT officer has ever been disciplined for unauthorized force, then lists three who
received specific reprimands.
STATEMENT: “it stretches credulity past the breaking point that no member of SWAT
has ever engaged in an out-of-policy use of force.”
COMMENT: WHY? It stretches credulity that the Board made such broad, damning
statements absent any factual evidence whatsoever. SWAT trains (or used to, anyway)
to hone its skills and judgment of their application to the finest edge possible. This
comment reflects nothing more than the Board’s blatant bias against officers it barely
met, hardly talked to, never observed and about whom it reached conclusions before
even holding a first meeting.
STATEMENT: “We concede that the Board did not study the jackets of each of these
officers and thus we do not know or have worked with the individual officers in
question... and are unaware of mitigating factors”
COMMENT: Of course, such study is unnecessary when advancing pre-conceived
notions and pre-determined conclusions.
CONCLUSION
In the opinion of the SWAT officers who have read it, the SWAT Board of Inquiry report:
… is rife with factual errors :
- “Few African Americans”
- “We… observed SWAT operations” (one member observed one warrant service)
-“Suzie Pena’s death was the first time in its 35-year history that SWAT killed a hostage
in the course of an attempted rescue.” (The truth of this statement is a matter of
debate. It is far more accurate to say she was the first hostage known to have
been lost).
- “so that the less lethal weapon could be fired and its results evaluated before the gun
was fired.” (The less lethal was used before and more often than the shotgun).
- “A practice of using negotiators in a secondary role as agents of the tacticians.”
- “negotiators more often serve the tacticians rather than challenge them”
- “In each of these instances, mental illness was not actively and adequately taken into
account in formulating an operational plan” (BSS was actually present and giving
input)
- “The SWAT Lieutenant later allegedly ordered that Messrs. Chai, Ramirez and Perez
be charged with resisting arrest.” (It was an FID Lieutenant).
… disregards key information and SWAT’s record :
- “Suspects were apprehended without untoward incident in 83% of (call-outs).
- Of 134 fatalities in 3371 incidents, 80 incidents, or 60% represent suicides.
- In 31 incidents, 23%, suspects were killed by SWAT
…void of any understanding of tactical practices in general or in SWAT in particular:
- “The practical (and undesirable) effect of such arrangements is that command and
control, and the decision to initiate action bypass the Incident Commander, the Metro
Captain and the SWAT lieutenant and go directly to a team leader.”
- “I like the sergeant being there. It establishes fire arms control.”
- “There was no explanation about why force was necessary…. The after action report did
not serve as a basis for meaningful review of the incident.”
- “Additionally, it puts too great a burden on team leaders to both formulate a plan and
execute it.”
- “This platoon should undergo rigorous and frequent training in conflict resolution
negotiation, psychology…”
- “The East Coast model also puts negotiators on an even footing with the tacticians”
- “Selection criteria underemphasized negotiating skills, patience, empathy and
flexibility while over-emphasizing physical prowess and tactical acumen.”
- Moving to a 24-hour coverage cycle, ignoring the 1980s split-team approach.
…biased from the word go:
- “military mind-set”
- “I’m looking to create change within SWAT”
- Repeated statements about the lack racial diversity of SWAT, which have no
basis in fact.
…insulting to the officers of the LAPD and SWAT in specific:
-“SWAT culture and insularity pose a certain danger to the LAPD and the Los Angeles
community as a whole.”
- “It helps SWAT remember their roots, and it helps patrol see that SWAT officers are
willing to role (sic) up their sleeves.”
- “This appears to be a case for using a negotiator with a track record for having brought
violent and angry men under control”
- “having as its over-riding priority the preservation of human life.”
- “a re-ordering of incentives may be in order”
- “The sharp-shooter claimed the suspect had a gun”
- Repeated insinuations that Team Leaders are incompetent and untrustworthy,
based solely on their rank.
…self-contradictory
- “The Board was not presented with anyone espousing contrary views.” (The Board
took a contradictory view, anyway).
- It recommends SWAT train less (despite reports of reduced effectiveness) yet
also suggesting new training tasks and an expansion of the platoon that would
require far more training than they did previously.
- (Use of computer analysis would allow the team to determine…) “…Does or does not
SWAT fail to make effective use of negotiation?” (The previous 46 pages were based
on that assumption.)
…full of vague statements and unsubstantiated recommendations:
- This is true throughout, but no more so in the observation that SWAT’s culture
is insular and self-referential. No evidence of this is offered at all, yet it is the
basis of the report.
- Constant uses of words like apparently, claimed, etc.
- “Untoward incidents”
- “SWAT, more often than one might like, but by no means always, hastily concludes
that negotiations are or would be fruitless.”
…insulting to its readers
The basis of this report was to “understand intimately” what happened on July
10, 2005. In fact, this report does not even attempt to do so. Moreover, it
describes the events of those day in bizarre, non-specific terms which pretend the
reader can’t tell what “summer of 2005 incident” saw “a father take his two
daughters hostage.”
The Officers of LAPD SWAT held out hope that this BOI would have found
opportunities to improve on its already excellent record. Instead, Chief Bratton has
chosen to shovel political correctness down the platoon’s throats, regardless of facts and
impacts.
A handful of ideas in this report are harmless (enhanced data tracking, if not
applied to each incident as Gospel) and potentially even positive (individual take-home
cars).
However, in the words of a two-decade veteran of the team, “these ideas will
get people (officers/citizens/suspects) killed, and have no benefit.”
The recommendations of this report should be discarded immediately.