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How Swat Teams Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and Charles Chuck Bryant's with
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Speaker 1: me as usual. It just wouldn't be the same if
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Speaker 1: you weren't, That's what I hear. Yeah, um, thankfully for
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Speaker 1: me and me. Oh sweetie, So that means this is
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Speaker 1: stuff you should know, all right, Chuck the podcast The
0:35
Speaker 1: Legend Lives on. Yeah, we thought about a name change recently,
0:38
Speaker 1: but we figured we'd just stick with it. Yeah, stuff
0:41
Speaker 1: you should know. Yes, we thought about a name change.
0:44
Speaker 1: I just made that up. Okay, I was gonna say
0:46
Speaker 1: you never see see me on any emails anymore? Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: So Chuck has a swat team ever rated your house? No?
0:57
Speaker 1: I did have a cop come to my door one
0:58
Speaker 1: time in Athens, so for what. I don't know why.
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Speaker 1: Actually I don't remember. I just remember being woken up
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Speaker 1: and there was a cop at the door, and I
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Speaker 1: can't remember exactly why he was coming by. It was
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Speaker 1: a mistake, clearly, but I also, you know, didn't fully
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Speaker 1: open the door. If you know what I'm saying. You
1:18
Speaker 1: are you making air quotes that you don't remember. It
1:21
Speaker 1: was a mistake, it really was. I don't honestly don't
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Speaker 1: remember why he showed up. I just remember thinking, I'm
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Speaker 1: just going to crack the door here and see what
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Speaker 1: this cop wants. Have you been arrested? No? Really does
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Speaker 1: that surprise you a little bit? Yeah? I mean you
1:34
Speaker 1: went to college in Athens, l A. For a while.
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Speaker 1: I mean I did get shaken down in front of
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Speaker 1: the Georgia Theater one night, like against the wall, frist
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Speaker 1: because there was no reasons. They're always shaking people down. Yeah,
1:47
Speaker 1: I mean they literally had no reason. They put all
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Speaker 1: of our friends up against the wall, like stop the
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Speaker 1: car and just jumped out, and as we were leaving
1:53
Speaker 1: a show. I think Georgia Theater being in the vicinity
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Speaker 1: of it was probably cause under law in Athens it
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Speaker 1: was weird. And then they left as soon as they came,
2:01
Speaker 1: they just like left. It's so odd. Well, luckily for you,
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Speaker 1: you didn't die of a heart attack, you weren't shot
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Speaker 1: in the chest, you weren't shot three times. No, um,
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Speaker 1: had it been a swat team that shook you down
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Speaker 1: or came to your door. All of these things may
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Speaker 1: have happened. I might have been too tapped. Yeah, yeah,
2:19
Speaker 1: what swat teams are, chuck, We should probably get to
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Speaker 1: that finally, right, Yes, swat teams are um, specially trained
2:28
Speaker 1: and specially equipped and armed divisions of police departments, heavily armed.
2:34
Speaker 1: Very Yeah. A lot of their stuff is cobbled together
2:36
Speaker 1: through um uh military surplus. Yeah. I didn't realize that.
2:40
Speaker 1: I didn't either. Pretty cool thanks to the grabster who
2:44
Speaker 1: wrote yet another fine article. Yeah, he's one of the
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Speaker 1: faiths around here. He is. He's a good guy and
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Speaker 1: ironically neither one of us have ever met him. No, like, yeah, yeah,
2:54
Speaker 1: I don't want to spoil it for you though. Yeah.
2:56
Speaker 1: I don't like doing that. I like keeping like a
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Speaker 1: non image or seen with a beard. Does he have
3:01
Speaker 1: a beard? He does, But we get that a lot
3:02
Speaker 1: when people see pictures of us, they right in and
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Speaker 1: to express their displeasure, which is always were obtuse. Yeah. Uh,
3:09
Speaker 1: Special Weapons and Tactics Josh is the name now, but
3:12
Speaker 1: what was it originally? Special Weapons Attack Team. Yeah, they
3:18
Speaker 1: realized it was a little too aggressive sounding a little bit. Yeah, so, um,
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Speaker 1: the the the guy who came up with the original
3:25
Speaker 1: name Special Weapons Attack Team. Right, was a guy named
3:29
Speaker 1: Daryl Gates who was police chief of l A p
3:32
Speaker 1: D for a very very long time while you were there,
3:35
Speaker 1: in fact, there during Rodney King incident. Now my brother
3:39
Speaker 1: was though, Yeah, was he anywhere near like south Central? Um, Well,
3:43
Speaker 1: it happened all over. He saw he was in the
3:46
Speaker 1: area of the riots. And you know clearly stayed in
3:49
Speaker 1: his apartment. Okay, so your brother's not Reginald Denny Good. Yeah,
3:54
Speaker 1: that'd be bad. I hope that guy's doing all right.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, me too. Um. But Gates didn't actually uh
4:01
Speaker 1: invent the swat team. He's falsely credited with that. He
4:04
Speaker 1: did champion the idea. I get the impression that a
4:07
Speaker 1: front of his or somebody lower on or I should
4:09
Speaker 1: say higher on the totem pole, came up with that idea,
4:14
Speaker 1: and being in a position of authority, Uh, he was
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Speaker 1: still a high ranking officer then, although not yet police chief,
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Speaker 1: Gates said this is a great idea. So he assembled
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Speaker 1: the world's first swat team, or at the very least
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Speaker 1: the United States first swat team, l ap D leading
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Speaker 1: the way as usual. Right, they also brought us with bribery, corruption, planning, weapons, brutality,
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Speaker 1: brutality of long history of bad things. Yeah, they've cleaned
4:41
Speaker 1: it up, though I think now have they Supposedly they
4:43
Speaker 1: they every decade they've cleaned it up, and then something
4:47
Speaker 1: horrible happened, and they've cleaned it up. Then fifty horrible
4:50
Speaker 1: things happened. But again they are credited with coming up
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Speaker 1: with the first swat team in America. That was seven.
4:57
Speaker 1: So they sat around for two years and waited until
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Speaker 1: an organization known as the Black Panthers UM did not
5:04
Speaker 1: want the l a p d To enter when they
5:08
Speaker 1: came a knocking on some gun warrants that their headquarters.
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Speaker 1: One of their first encounters that in the Simbionese Liberation Army.
5:16
Speaker 1: Right actually read accounts of these these two things, that
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Speaker 1: the Black Panthers standoff in sixty nine and the s
5:24
Speaker 1: l A standoff in seventy four, UM were days long, right.
5:32
Speaker 1: They In the s l A stand off, they they
5:36
Speaker 1: shot tear gas into the house. Nothing, they just really
5:40
Speaker 1: turned fire. Everybody either died of gunshot wounds or burned
5:44
Speaker 1: in the fire. The Black Panthers all made it out alive,
5:47
Speaker 1: but this was after several days too. And in both cases,
5:50
Speaker 1: both sides fired several thousand rounds at one another. Yeah,
5:54
Speaker 1: that's a serious standoff. So yeah, and this is um
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Speaker 1: It definitely remains in the the mentality of the l
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Speaker 1: A p D SWAT team because they have an unofficial
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Speaker 1: patch that has forty one and fifty four. Uh. The
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Speaker 1: Black Panthers headquarters where the standoff took place was at
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Speaker 1: forty one Street, and then the s l A standoff
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Speaker 1: was at fifty four and I think Compton Avenue, Yeah, exactly.
6:20
Speaker 1: I mean like this created it. At the very least,
6:24
Speaker 1: it showed the world that you do need SWAT teams,
6:27
Speaker 1: because up to this point, before the SWAT teams were created,
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Speaker 1: any officer who came up on a scene was expected
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Speaker 1: to resolve the problem sure with you know, I mean,
6:37
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say minimal firearms, but certainly not special especially equipped. Right.
6:42
Speaker 1: And then in n UM the I don't remember what
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Speaker 1: what network it was on, but SWAT came out. Cops
6:51
Speaker 1: show about SWAT teams. Oh, is he in it? Yeah?
6:55
Speaker 1: I never saw it. I saw the horrible, horrible remake,
6:59
Speaker 1: the view version. Yeah, I didn't see that with Sam
7:02
Speaker 1: Jackson and Colin Farrell. I didn't see that. That's a
7:05
Speaker 1: deadly combination. Now, was that a remaker? Was it drinking
7:08
Speaker 1: water in rural Mexico? But in movie form, you know what?
7:11
Speaker 1: Sam Jackson and Colin Farrell. Yeah, yeah, Sam Jackson's almost
7:15
Speaker 1: a parody of himself at this point. Yeah, he has
7:18
Speaker 1: been the whole time. We just didn't catch on at first.
7:21
Speaker 1: Is that what I was think? So, Uh, let's talk
7:25
Speaker 1: a little bit about how many there are in the country.
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Speaker 1: Supposedly there are about twelve hundred swat teams in the
7:31
Speaker 1: United States, and of police forces in cities of fifty
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Speaker 1: thousand or more have some kind of swat team. Not bad, no,
7:41
Speaker 1: not at all. Smaller towns, yeah, which is uh, pretty
7:45
Speaker 1: much everybody. I think there's twelve across the country. Um,
7:51
Speaker 1: and some cities, smaller towns um have kind of gotten
7:56
Speaker 1: together with other nearby smaller towns and have been like, hey,
7:59
Speaker 1: Wolf own a few swat team members in some equipment.
8:02
Speaker 1: You guys do the same. We'll have a regional swat team. Right,
8:05
Speaker 1: I've got two point men if you've got a sniper,
8:08
Speaker 1: and they'll just collecting Harry Potter trading cards with real
8:11
Speaker 1: life swat team member, right, I never thought about that.
8:14
Speaker 1: So what do they use these people for, Chuck, this
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Speaker 1: this elite group of technically trained, heavily armed paramilitary police officers. Well, Josh,
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Speaker 1: there's quite a few scenarios. A high risk warrant obviously,
8:29
Speaker 1: if they're going to serve a warrant to a known
8:32
Speaker 1: violent felon who may have a gun or armament, right,
8:36
Speaker 1: they want to bring in the swat team any kind
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Speaker 1: of hostage situation or barricade situation obviously. Um, a high
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Speaker 1: risk person is when someone needs to be transported like
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Speaker 1: some nasty sereal Henry Hill, and obviously terrorist attacks or riots,
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Speaker 1: you call him the swat team, yeah, or the riot crew,
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Speaker 1: which we should do. Uh, this made me want to
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Speaker 1: do one on riot control. Actually we should do that.
8:59
Speaker 1: It's point cracking heads. Oh is that how they do it,
9:02
Speaker 1: cracking hippies heads? Yeah, hippies. We should do that because
9:06
Speaker 1: we could talk about the Battle for Seattle in Yeah,
9:10
Speaker 1: my friend was there. Yeah, that's right. I think you
9:13
Speaker 1: said that inciting the riot throwing bricks and funny funny
9:17
Speaker 1: signs that he held up like Simpsons references and are
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Speaker 1: kind of guy. Alright, So look for riot control coming up. Right. Indeed, um,
9:26
Speaker 1: so check there's about forty swat raids in the US
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Speaker 1: every year. Yeah, that's a lot, didn't it. Yeah, I
9:32
Speaker 1: didn't realize that it's growing and growing in the last
9:35
Speaker 1: twenty five years. It's increased now. Is that because they're
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Speaker 1: a little more trigger happy, or because there's more swat guys,
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Speaker 1: or there because there's more situations that need it for
9:44
Speaker 1: all three? Probably it's probably all three plus a little
9:47
Speaker 1: bit of um looser federal funding coming in than there
9:50
Speaker 1: ever was before. The Department of Homeland securities around. They
9:54
Speaker 1: have deep pockets, so the police station might say, wow, sure,
9:57
Speaker 1: let's get that tank since we have the dough nice. Yeah,
10:01
Speaker 1: although it's really not a tank. Yeah, well we should
10:05
Speaker 1: talk about that. Actually, it says a lot of times
10:07
Speaker 1: the vehicles are are transformed into swat vehicles. So they'll
10:12
Speaker 1: just take like a delivery van and arm it painted
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Speaker 1: black and throw some bat shields up on it, and
10:17
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, that's a that's an armed vehicle. Yeah,
10:20
Speaker 1: and a lot of times it sees stuff. Yeah, sometimes
10:23
Speaker 1: they use r vs. Um I love this park, Go ahead,
10:27
Speaker 1: I know where you're going where it'll be like a
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Speaker 1: mobile command headquarters. The reason it's so valuable is really obvious,
10:33
Speaker 1: but it's easy to overlook because they have a bathroom. Yeah,
10:37
Speaker 1: I never see in the movies. You never see the
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Speaker 1: hostage standoff where the guy says, I have to go
10:43
Speaker 1: take a leak. Yeah, you you stay there way when
10:45
Speaker 1: you're gun don't shoot anybody while I'm gone. You've never
10:48
Speaker 1: see anyone sneeze or go to the bathroom anything like
10:50
Speaker 1: that unless it's important to the film, right, And a
10:52
Speaker 1: lot of times they'll use these transports, though heavily armed,
10:55
Speaker 1: to like actually carry the SWAT team members into an assault. Um.
11:00
Speaker 1: But it doesn't always work. Um. In Night After German
11:04
Speaker 1: terrorists sees the Nakatomi Building in Los Angeles, the L
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Speaker 1: a p D. SWAT Team used their heavily armored vehicle
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Speaker 1: to try to breach the door to the building and
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Speaker 1: they were fired upon by the terrorists using a rocket launcher,
11:19
Speaker 1: which I think killed or injured everyone inside. Chi stay finsta, yeh,
11:24
Speaker 1: ask me what that means? What does that mean? Shoot
11:27
Speaker 1: the glass? Okay? Thanks now? And if no one out
11:30
Speaker 1: there realizes that we're talking clearly about the movie die Hard,
11:33
Speaker 1: then wah, you really need to get out more at
11:37
Speaker 1: least want more movies. Yeah, absolutely, all right, Chuck, Let's
11:40
Speaker 1: get down to basics here, dude. Okay, we've gotten so
11:43
Speaker 1: far Afield it's ridiculous. No, not really, not as bad
11:47
Speaker 1: as we did with the whole g I, Joe, Tirade
11:49
Speaker 1: and Ninja. Yea, yeah. Um, how do you become a
11:54
Speaker 1: SWAT Team member? Well, Josh, there's different ways you can
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Speaker 1: become a member. You obviously have to be a police officer,
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Speaker 1: and uh many times you can volunteer if you just
12:05
Speaker 1: want the extra action and you feel like you're capable,
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Speaker 1: or you're a really good marksman or just a tough guy.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes though, you are actually forced into duty. Yeah, you know,
12:15
Speaker 1: there's couple of years of service. It's um, it's like
12:18
Speaker 1: a uh as a point in a police officer's career,
12:22
Speaker 1: like you start as rookie, you've worked to be, you know,
12:25
Speaker 1: and then maybe at some point you're a detective and
12:27
Speaker 1: then after that a swatter. Maybe those are good version.
12:29
Speaker 1: But yeah, some on some forces you're expected to eventually
12:32
Speaker 1: be a SWAP member for a little while. On um
12:36
Speaker 1: smaller uh scales, SWAT Team members will be regular police
12:42
Speaker 1: officers as well. Or just driving around like looking for
12:45
Speaker 1: bad guys or whatever, and then there's a there's a
12:48
Speaker 1: call out, which is what they're called, um and then
12:51
Speaker 1: they'll go and get their stuff and get ready. Right
12:54
Speaker 1: in places like l A, New York, their SWAT teams
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Speaker 1: are like just SWAP members seven. They train all the time.
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Speaker 1: They're they're very well funded, very heavily armed. Uh, and
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Speaker 1: that is the SWAT team that we generally think of
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Speaker 1: when we think of swap, right, yeah, So how do
13:10
Speaker 1: they get to be this way? I mean, clearly they're
13:12
Speaker 1: they're badasses, but they have to go through training, right Yeah,
13:16
Speaker 1: And like you said, the training never ends when you're
13:19
Speaker 1: like kind of being in the military. You don't stop training.
13:22
Speaker 1: You're constantly training because you gotta keep up the physical fitness. Uh.
13:26
Speaker 1: You should be an expert marksman, although it's not absolutely required,
13:29
Speaker 1: I think it is in a lot of like the
13:31
Speaker 1: ones where they're SWAT teams said, I think that they
13:35
Speaker 1: do require them to be such expert marksman that they're
13:38
Speaker 1: they're automatically qualified to teach marksman courses. Right. I believe
13:42
Speaker 1: master marksman is the term we're looking for, which makes sense. Sure,
13:46
Speaker 1: So what they do here obviously is set up scenarios
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Speaker 1: to practice. You know when you see in the movies
13:50
Speaker 1: when they have the fake city scene or the fake
13:54
Speaker 1: house and then they push the button and outcomes a
13:57
Speaker 1: dummy of a of a bad guy academy. Yeah, or
14:00
Speaker 1: outcomes the dummy of a lady holding a child, and
14:03
Speaker 1: invariably in the movie that they shoot the lady by
14:06
Speaker 1: accident and they have to start. That's really how it
14:11
Speaker 1: goes down though. Yeah. Yeah, which makes a lot of
14:14
Speaker 1: sense because, as the Grabs are points out in the article,
14:16
Speaker 1: sitting around and talking about what you should do is
14:19
Speaker 1: not really good training. You need high levels of training
14:22
Speaker 1: or computer sunds. They do that too, sure, which I
14:25
Speaker 1: think usually require you walking around with the gun as well.
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Speaker 1: They to do Yeah, okay, I don't think it's just
14:30
Speaker 1: like a joystick. I think you're in a room where
14:33
Speaker 1: it simulates like the mannequins coming out gun right, But
14:37
Speaker 1: instead it's like all the characters from a sonic the Hedgehog.
14:42
Speaker 1: So Chuck, we've got gun training. Uh. There's often um, well,
14:47
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say often in some cases, specifically with the
14:49
Speaker 1: l A. P. D Um. There's also a lot of
14:52
Speaker 1: hostage negotiation training as well. Uh, in most places keep
14:57
Speaker 1: SWAT and hostage negotiation totally separate. They don't want them
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Speaker 1: to mix. They actually probably want them to butt heads
15:04
Speaker 1: a little bit so that there's real discourse about whether
15:07
Speaker 1: or not to go in with guns blazing or to
15:10
Speaker 1: try to resolve the situation through negotiation. Right. But in
15:14
Speaker 1: the l A p D SWAT, every single one of
15:16
Speaker 1: them is a trained hostage negotiator that's qualified to take
15:19
Speaker 1: over negotiations as the lead negotiating. That's pretty cool. It
15:23
Speaker 1: is pretty cool, and that was multifaceted. Yeah, that was
15:26
Speaker 1: one of my favorite podcasts we did too, about the
15:27
Speaker 1: hostage and negotiations. So these are closely tied UH, segments
15:32
Speaker 1: of private law enforcement. I guess I keep wanting to
15:35
Speaker 1: call it military, but well it's paramilitary. I mean, they
15:38
Speaker 1: very much resemble a military like teams. They have, UM,
15:44
Speaker 1: stealth reconnaissance team members, people who you know, if if
15:49
Speaker 1: they are getting some information about the layout of the house,
15:52
Speaker 1: maybe from the negotiator the hostage was let go or
15:55
Speaker 1: something like that, UM that they need more, they'll send
15:58
Speaker 1: a couple of guys in and they will drill a
16:01
Speaker 1: hole and put a pinhole camera in to keep an
16:03
Speaker 1: eye on the guy, get more information about the house,
16:06
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Right. They have snipers obviously, yes,
16:09
Speaker 1: anti sniper snipers, do they ya? Because what if there's
16:13
Speaker 1: a sniper shooting at you that well, wouldn't that just
16:16
Speaker 1: be a sniper? Yeah, but they call them anti snipers. Uh, well, yeah,
16:21
Speaker 1: I guess that's true. Most snipers aren't just like some
16:24
Speaker 1: jerk walking around waving a gun inside of a house.
16:26
Speaker 1: You're probably hard to hit. And what else do they have?
16:30
Speaker 1: Explosive explosive guys experts demolition. I guess you would call
16:35
Speaker 1: it pretty cool. Yeah, so, I mean this is not
16:39
Speaker 1: your average average ordinary patrol guy who's gonna pull you
16:42
Speaker 1: over for running a stop sign. Right, No, definitely not so, Chuck.
16:46
Speaker 1: We've kind of referred to it here there you know,
16:49
Speaker 1: there's like a guy waving a gun in the house
16:51
Speaker 1: or whatever. SWAT situations are generally, um where there's a standoff,
16:57
Speaker 1: like you said, yeah, um to where there there is
17:02
Speaker 1: a guy in a house. So he has hostages, he's
17:06
Speaker 1: barricaded himself inside, he's not responding, right, so the swat
17:11
Speaker 1: team is called out. The swat team apparently takes about
17:15
Speaker 1: an hour to assemble get make it to the scene,
17:19
Speaker 1: right Yeah, even though I think you mentioned that they can.
17:22
Speaker 1: They listen in on the police radio and if they
17:24
Speaker 1: hear of a scenario where they might be called, they'll
17:26
Speaker 1: go ahead and start loading the shotguns with shells and
17:29
Speaker 1: start getting ready just in case, putting on the grease
17:32
Speaker 1: paint exactly the chicken blood across the forehead. Yeah. Um.
17:37
Speaker 1: But when they make it out, one of the first
17:39
Speaker 1: things they'll do, apparently is come up with um, quick
17:44
Speaker 1: and dirty. Yeah, I just made air quotes as you saw,
17:47
Speaker 1: contingency plans in case this thing just falls apart. Right
17:51
Speaker 1: when they get there, they need to know how to
17:53
Speaker 1: get in, get as many people out as possible, neutralize
17:56
Speaker 1: the guy, which is another word for kill exactly. Uh.
18:01
Speaker 1: And um, if they do have time of the situation
18:05
Speaker 1: is what the cops call static, meaning the guys just
18:07
Speaker 1: he's responding tonying negotiator. He's not shooting anybody yet. It's
18:12
Speaker 1: still standoff, but there's not nothing. There's the element of time.
18:16
Speaker 1: They have time, then they're gonna start planning, right Yeah.
18:19
Speaker 1: That's when you bring in the r V and that
18:21
Speaker 1: means you can use the bathroom if you want and
18:23
Speaker 1: come up with a very you know, safe plan because ideally,
18:27
Speaker 1: and now the Grabster points out, even though these guys
18:30
Speaker 1: have a reputation as being very trigger happy, ideally you
18:34
Speaker 1: want to end it peacefully, even if you're a swat team. Remember,
18:38
Speaker 1: so they're getting information from the hostage negotiator, from many
18:41
Speaker 1: hostages that may be released from their stealth guys, and
18:45
Speaker 1: they've decided that enough enough, it's time for this guy
18:48
Speaker 1: to go down, right, So they've assembled, they know, they've
18:53
Speaker 1: got their plan set, they've got all the information they need,
18:57
Speaker 1: and they go through the barricade, they go through the door.
19:00
Speaker 1: What does that look like if you're standing there and
19:02
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you're in the house. The door
19:04
Speaker 1: opens up and incomes the swat team. What's gonna happen? Well,
19:08
Speaker 1: first thing, first, you probably would not see ten guys
19:12
Speaker 1: because they form what's called a snake and that's why
19:15
Speaker 1: in the films you see in the in the picture
19:18
Speaker 1: shows you see them in a dead straight line obviously
19:21
Speaker 1: because it minimizes the you know, the targets, right, Yeah,
19:24
Speaker 1: they can shoot at the The guy in front of
19:26
Speaker 1: that line is called the point man. Very brave person,
19:29
Speaker 1: very brave. But also that guy has to be as
19:32
Speaker 1: cool as a cucumber under some of the highest amounts
19:35
Speaker 1: of stressing human being can go through. He has to
19:38
Speaker 1: be able to take in an entire situation in a
19:41
Speaker 1: split second, decide if that's a woman holding a baby,
19:45
Speaker 1: so don't shoot her because this isn't police academy um
19:49
Speaker 1: or you know, if that if the guy has a gun,
19:52
Speaker 1: if it's pointed at them, what's going on exactly? And
19:55
Speaker 1: then act on this information in a really quick manner. Right,
20:00
Speaker 1: I would be at the tail end of that snake.
20:01
Speaker 1: If I was a sweat guy, I'd still be in
20:04
Speaker 1: the bathroom, in the motor room. Yeah, uh what Well.
20:07
Speaker 1: You know, also in the movies they get it right
20:09
Speaker 1: most times is you'll see them come in in a
20:12
Speaker 1: single file and then immediately it seems like they all
20:15
Speaker 1: go to a designated spot in the room, almost as
20:19
Speaker 1: if they were trained to do so. And it's because
20:22
Speaker 1: they are. Yeah, they're called the areas of responsibility. Yeah,
20:25
Speaker 1: they have it all planned out beforehand. Yeah, so you
20:27
Speaker 1: have like eight guys and they already know the layout
20:29
Speaker 1: of the room, where they're entering, and where the guy
20:31
Speaker 1: has the hostages. Right, Um, they each person has a
20:36
Speaker 1: portion of the room that they're responsible for. So the
20:38
Speaker 1: point man comes in and maybe his dead ahead, the
20:41
Speaker 1: guy behind him is to the right, and the little
20:43
Speaker 1: corner of the guy behind him is a little beyond that.
20:45
Speaker 1: So everybody's aiming at different parts of the room. And
20:48
Speaker 1: then once they right exactly, once they've noticed that their
20:52
Speaker 1: area of responsibility is clear, then they're going to train
20:55
Speaker 1: their gun on, you know, the guy who is the problem.
20:59
Speaker 1: And they're also we forgot to mentioned generally a lot
21:01
Speaker 1: of yelling and screaming going on and maybe a what
21:05
Speaker 1: was it called a flash bang grenade? Yeah, because one
21:08
Speaker 1: of the things that they want to do is disorient
21:11
Speaker 1: and confuse the suspects so you can shoot them in
21:15
Speaker 1: the head or ideally put them on the ground and
21:18
Speaker 1: cut them. We have to say that because that's really
21:21
Speaker 1: what they're after. We can't just say that their kill
21:24
Speaker 1: crazy vengeance minded thugs. No, And that's actually evidenced by
21:29
Speaker 1: the percentage of um SWAT assaults that we're not a
21:33
Speaker 1: single gunshot is fired, it's about Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah,
21:38
Speaker 1: I bet that ten percent is pretty exciting, pretty pretty
21:41
Speaker 1: bloody thousands of rounds of AMMO. They also point out
21:45
Speaker 1: m or Ed does rather that when you have your
21:47
Speaker 1: area of responsibility, you plan to sing out obviously to
21:50
Speaker 1: go in and cover the room, but your point man
21:54
Speaker 1: and actually everyone on the team is sort of like
21:55
Speaker 1: the quarterback coming to the line of scrimmage when you
21:59
Speaker 1: when you do at in the NFL, you see the
22:01
Speaker 1: defense and sometimes you have to change the play because
22:04
Speaker 1: the layout has changed or it's not exactly how you thought.
22:06
Speaker 1: There were more guys in there than you thought. So
22:09
Speaker 1: you don't want to be the guy who's like covering
22:11
Speaker 1: your empty corner, which makes up your area of responsibility
22:14
Speaker 1: the whole time. Yeah, you want to be Peyton manning
22:16
Speaker 1: sure that the line of scrimmage, except you have a gun.
22:20
Speaker 1: Can we talk about the guns? This is my favorite part,
22:23
Speaker 1: is that you gun guy. No, neither one of us are,
22:26
Speaker 1: but we always go all giggly when we talk about
22:28
Speaker 1: these guns. I guess it's just being raised as kids
22:30
Speaker 1: watching the A team and stuff like that, because I'm
22:33
Speaker 1: not a gun guy at all. Both of us are
22:35
Speaker 1: little pansy liberals. I have a penny waist done right
22:38
Speaker 1: now now. But I love these guns. So Uh. Equipment wise, Um,
22:44
Speaker 1: every officer has a nice, reliable, high powered handgun. First
22:49
Speaker 1: things first, correct, Yeah, which they usually wear lower on
22:53
Speaker 1: their leg for quick reach, and then the holsters will
22:58
Speaker 1: be modified so that they can draw really fast. Although
23:01
Speaker 1: I imagine if you're going in you already have your
23:03
Speaker 1: gun out. I think it's technically is to look kind
23:06
Speaker 1: of like han solo. Is that what it is? Uh?
23:09
Speaker 1: And they also will usually have a submachine gun and
23:11
Speaker 1: a shotgun, and clearly they're not gonna go in with
23:13
Speaker 1: all three, but they have a great amount of leeway
23:16
Speaker 1: with their their own personal arsenal. They can pick out
23:19
Speaker 1: their own guns essentially, and a lot of times if
23:22
Speaker 1: you look at the SWAT arsenal, Uh, it's kind of
23:25
Speaker 1: ragtag and piecemeal. Um. Because in addition to seizing delivery vans, yes,
23:30
Speaker 1: for drugs, they also sees weapons from drug dealers. So
23:33
Speaker 1: one guy might have an oozy, another guy might have
23:35
Speaker 1: an a Heckler and coke MP four or something like that.
23:38
Speaker 1: At seven, Yeah, say something cool. I got a picture
23:44
Speaker 1: for you. Oh you even have it turned over so
23:47
Speaker 1: I couldn't. I was going to surprise you with this.
23:49
Speaker 1: In the article, Ed talks about um shotguns are clearly
23:52
Speaker 1: popular because you can not be too discerning with where
23:56
Speaker 1: you're aiming and still hit something. They can. I would
23:58
Speaker 1: think that you wouldn't want a shotgun in a swat
24:01
Speaker 1: hostage situation. Well, it depends on the situation, so I
24:04
Speaker 1: think that's why they picked their guns. But he pointed
24:06
Speaker 1: out that sometimes you can combine the shotgun with the
24:10
Speaker 1: machine gun. What did you see that? No, the night
24:13
Speaker 1: Master key s And I'm gonna show you a picture
24:15
Speaker 1: and I would love to be able to post this
24:17
Speaker 1: on the on the blog, but look at that bad boy?
24:20
Speaker 1: Holy cow. It is essentially if you know guns, if
24:24
Speaker 1: you picture like an M sixteen with a clip. Right
24:26
Speaker 1: in front of the clip is the front end of
24:29
Speaker 1: a shotgun without the barrel on it attached to the gun. Right,
24:33
Speaker 1: It's like an M sixteen with a grenade launcher attachment,
24:35
Speaker 1: but instead of the grenade launcher has a shotgun. And
24:38
Speaker 1: I'm anti gun, but I want that's my new zombie
24:42
Speaker 1: defense weapon. Yeah yeah, I don't want to hurt anybody,
24:46
Speaker 1: but this does make me wish for a zombie apocalypse.
24:49
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, nice one. So that's the Master key. Are
24:52
Speaker 1: you going to hang that up in your cubicle. Wow,
24:54
Speaker 1: people might think him some creep, but that's not that's
24:57
Speaker 1: not the people not stop by your desk. Quot is
24:59
Speaker 1: on a right bug you. We mentioned the flash band
25:02
Speaker 1: grenades obviously, Um, if it's a riot situation, they have
25:06
Speaker 1: all manner of non lethal things that they can shoot
25:09
Speaker 1: at you from and would and things that will stop
25:12
Speaker 1: you but not kill you. They use um, grappling hooks
25:14
Speaker 1: and tiger claws, and now that's ninja. I get the
25:19
Speaker 1: too confusing. Understand. Bolt action rifles are the sniper rifle
25:24
Speaker 1: of preference, right, but they're not allowed to use fifty
25:27
Speaker 1: millimeter or fifty caliber? Right? Is it fifty millimet Okay? Um,
25:33
Speaker 1: these are sniper rifles that I think we've mentioned before
25:35
Speaker 1: and probably the Delta Force podcast. I think we have
25:39
Speaker 1: because I think either Special Forces or Delta Force or
25:42
Speaker 1: both requires their snipers to be able to be accurate
25:47
Speaker 1: with a fifty cow um sniper rifle up yards. And
25:52
Speaker 1: why can't they use them in the private police sector
25:55
Speaker 1: Because it will go right through your target and through
25:59
Speaker 1: a couple of hostages as well. It can also go
26:01
Speaker 1: right through walls. Check that out. Huge, that's twice as
26:06
Speaker 1: tall as a dollar bill. Yeah, I'm showing Josh a
26:08
Speaker 1: picture of a fifty cole round and they did a
26:10
Speaker 1: measurement next to a ruler and it's about five and
26:12
Speaker 1: a half inches long. Is this bullet with the casing? Obviously,
26:16
Speaker 1: but it's enormous. It can rip very big holes and things.
26:19
Speaker 1: So they don't allow them to use that because it
26:21
Speaker 1: could potentially kill hostages, like on the street behind the house.
26:26
Speaker 1: It could potentially kill a fruit vendor two towns over. Good.
26:30
Speaker 1: That's not good. You want your fruit vendors alive and well.
26:34
Speaker 1: And surveillance equipment obviously. Yeah, that pinhole camera. I mentioned
26:40
Speaker 1: high power binoculars in VGs night vision goggles. Yeah, have
26:44
Speaker 1: you ever used those? I have? Have you really? Yeah?
26:47
Speaker 1: Did you? Were you carrying this thing? No? No, no,
26:49
Speaker 1: My brother in laws and the Marines and he let
26:51
Speaker 1: me wear his out in the neighborhood one night. Did
26:54
Speaker 1: you toilet pap for your neighbor's house? No? But I
26:56
Speaker 1: walked around and looked at stuff. It was about the
26:58
Speaker 1: coolest thing ever. Really, did you notice anything that you
27:01
Speaker 1: wouldn't normally see, like squirrels doing weird stuff? Well, not
27:05
Speaker 1: weird stuff, but you can see in the dark, although
27:07
Speaker 1: not complete dark. You know, they worked by amplifying available light.
27:11
Speaker 1: But if it is complete dark, what can they use
27:14
Speaker 1: a thermal imaging cameras. I have a story about this, Chuck.
27:18
Speaker 1: Let's back in the turn of the last millennium. Chuck.
27:21
Speaker 1: There's a lot of debate about whether or not police
27:23
Speaker 1: departments or law enforcements should be using these thermal imaging
27:27
Speaker 1: cameras because they said that, um, they could see right
27:31
Speaker 1: through walls. They could. There was way too much detail.
27:34
Speaker 1: It was just unfair and violated privacy right, And they
27:39
Speaker 1: were using them in flyovers of suspected grow houses. But
27:43
Speaker 1: basically you could just ride around and look right into
27:45
Speaker 1: somebody's house. What, oh, marijuana grow house. Now you're hip, okay, um? Yeah,
27:52
Speaker 1: So the law enforcement officers are saying like, no, no, no,
27:56
Speaker 1: you can't see through houses. You can't. All you can
27:58
Speaker 1: see is like whether there's a lot of heat coming
28:00
Speaker 1: off of the house. Well, I found it an alternative
28:04
Speaker 1: newspaper in East Tennessee called Washboard Weekly, and I got
28:08
Speaker 1: to the bottom of this, and I found out that
28:09
Speaker 1: I think the Union Pacific Railroads employed security cards who
28:12
Speaker 1: had these thermal engine cameras to look for bums on board,
28:16
Speaker 1: and I got in touch with one of these guys.
28:19
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend the bumps. UM,
28:23
Speaker 1: And I got in touch with one of these security guards,
28:26
Speaker 1: and he was boasting about how it could see right
28:29
Speaker 1: through two inch thick steel walls and cable cars. They're
28:33
Speaker 1: not cable cars but box cars, right and um he said,
28:37
Speaker 1: you can see everything. You can make out basically details.
28:40
Speaker 1: These things are so good. So I correct the case. Yeah,
28:46
Speaker 1: no one paid attention, but I figured it out that, yeah,
28:49
Speaker 1: you law enforcement shouldn't be using those things. There were
28:51
Speaker 1: twenty people in East Tennessee that were very upset as
28:54
Speaker 1: a result of Yeah, I thought you're gonna say you
28:56
Speaker 1: got to see it or use it or get a demo. No,
28:59
Speaker 1: I just got to the bottom of it. That's a
29:01
Speaker 1: little good jobs investigative reporter Josh and Chuck. That's a
29:07
Speaker 1: pretty good segue, don't you think, Um two, I guess.
29:11
Speaker 1: Accusations of overuse and overaggression of SWAT teams. Sure, there's
29:17
Speaker 1: a lot of controversy and criticism right now over the
29:20
Speaker 1: past you know, decade or so. UM for instance, calling
29:23
Speaker 1: out the SWAT team to serve a warrant on a
29:26
Speaker 1: non violent offender. Seems like it might be overkill. Yeah,
29:29
Speaker 1: and it has been just plain old kill in several occasions. Yeah,
29:33
Speaker 1: let's talk about a couple of these. And we're not
29:35
Speaker 1: trying to blow the whistle, but these things have actually happened,
29:38
Speaker 1: sadly in South Carolina and a high school drug grade
29:42
Speaker 1: and SWAT team was called in to a high school
29:45
Speaker 1: drug grade and they forged students as young as fourteen
29:49
Speaker 1: to kneel down at gunpoint, and drugs dogs sniffed around
29:53
Speaker 1: in their lockers and their backpacks, and they of course
29:56
Speaker 1: found no drugs. I would say that overkill and misuse
30:01
Speaker 1: of SWAT team very much. So you want to hear
30:04
Speaker 1: another one. Uh. In two thousand six, in Maryland, UM
30:08
Speaker 1: police rated the home of Cheryl noll Um two I
30:14
Speaker 1: guess sees drugs from her nineteen year old son. Those
30:20
Speaker 1: drugs turned out to be marijuana, just a tiny amount.
30:23
Speaker 1: But the cops came in at four thirty in the morning.
30:27
Speaker 1: Cheryl Noel had no idea what was going on, so
30:29
Speaker 1: she heard somebody storming into her house and she grabbed
30:31
Speaker 1: her registered gun and had it pointed at the floor
30:34
Speaker 1: into in her bedroom where she was standing. The cops
30:38
Speaker 1: kicked the bedroom door im without identifying themselves and without
30:42
Speaker 1: telling her to drop the weapon. They shot her three times.
30:45
Speaker 1: The third time was when she was already on the ground.
30:49
Speaker 1: She was dead, and they ruled it a justifiable Yeah.
30:55
Speaker 1: You know that happened in that old lady in Atlanta
30:56
Speaker 1: just last year. But it wouldn't. It wasn't SWAT, that
30:58
Speaker 1: was just regular cops. It was I think Dog was it.
31:01
Speaker 1: And they just busted in on her and I think
31:03
Speaker 1: she had a gun, right, Yeah, and acted in self
31:06
Speaker 1: defense and they killed this old lady. She Yeah, they
31:08
Speaker 1: shot her like seven or eight times. Verry said, I
31:11
Speaker 1: think Red Dog got disbanded because of that. Yeah. Here's
31:14
Speaker 1: another good one. This is my favorite one. Uh. An
31:17
Speaker 1: optometrist at some point was shot and killed by a
31:20
Speaker 1: SWAT team officer when the team was called out to
31:23
Speaker 1: arrest him for betting on football games. Yeah, guy named
31:26
Speaker 1: Salvator Kulosi Jr. Where was this? You know? It was
31:30
Speaker 1: in Boston and the guy was complying. He was outside
31:33
Speaker 1: of his house, hands up to and everything the cops
31:35
Speaker 1: were telling him to do, and one of the SWAT
31:38
Speaker 1: team members had a UM I think a H and
31:41
Speaker 1: K or somebody's forty five trained on the guy's chest
31:45
Speaker 1: with his finger on the trigger and accidentally shot him
31:48
Speaker 1: in the chest and killed him for betting on NFL football. Yeah. Well,
31:52
Speaker 1: thankfully these incidences are incidences. Is maybe incidences are few
31:58
Speaker 1: and far between, and and I mean they the police
32:03
Speaker 1: department in the city tends to side with their swat team.
32:07
Speaker 1: They'll pay out like a million dollars for a wrongful
32:09
Speaker 1: death or something like that. Um, But it's not really
32:12
Speaker 1: having any impact on the use of swat teams. But
32:14
Speaker 1: something else is Chuck, did you notice the sidebar on
32:18
Speaker 1: the active shooter doctrine? Yes? I did. Actually, that's when
32:22
Speaker 1: there it's like a uh, some kok goes into the
32:26
Speaker 1: office building and start shooting people up or a school shooter. Right.
32:29
Speaker 1: School school shooting is what gave rise to this, the
32:32
Speaker 1: ninety s Columbine shooting. UM. For an hour while this
32:36
Speaker 1: this rampage was going on, they they regular cops created
32:40
Speaker 1: a perimeter and just stood outside of it waiting for
32:43
Speaker 1: the swat team, which is exactly what they were supposed
32:45
Speaker 1: to do. But no, it's not because by the time
32:48
Speaker 1: the SWAT team finally went in, everything was over. There
32:52
Speaker 1: were you know, um, I think seventeen dead and thirty
32:55
Speaker 1: five injured. One guy bled to death in the while
32:57
Speaker 1: while before the SWAT team made in and both shooters
33:00
Speaker 1: had had killed themselves, right, So that gave rise to
33:03
Speaker 1: this active shooter doctrine, which is kind of this new
33:05
Speaker 1: school of thought that has led to new training for
33:08
Speaker 1: just that the average patrol officer to handle this kind
33:12
Speaker 1: of thing rather than wait for SWAT, so to act fast. Yeah,
33:16
Speaker 1: and and to act tough as well. You know, I mean,
33:18
Speaker 1: if somebody's running around shooting, you can't just call and
33:21
Speaker 1: say we need SWAT and wait an hour. You have
33:23
Speaker 1: to go in and kill the guy yourself neutralized, Yes, neutralized. Sorry. Um.
33:27
Speaker 1: So that's leading to a whole new sentiment. And and
33:29
Speaker 1: like I said, training for regular officers across the country,
33:32
Speaker 1: which is really odd for SWAT now because they're being
33:35
Speaker 1: relegated to just um static situations where there's like a
33:38
Speaker 1: hostage and there's time, the element of time, which I
33:42
Speaker 1: wonder how many SWAT team members are happy about this
33:44
Speaker 1: active shooter doctrine. Yeah, seriously, it was kind of thing. Yeah,
33:48
Speaker 1: you know if I've noticed if we say guys a lot.
33:51
Speaker 1: We're not trying to be sexist, but most of these
33:52
Speaker 1: creeps who take hostages and barricade and then shoot up
33:56
Speaker 1: schools and office buildings, they're usually guys. Let's let's be
34:00
Speaker 1: real here. Women are far too sensible to do something
34:03
Speaker 1: like that. We'll put Chuck. Well, if you want to
34:06
Speaker 1: learn more about SWAT, you can type in how SWAT
34:10
Speaker 1: teams work in the handy search bar at how stuff
34:13
Speaker 1: works dot com, which of course leads us now to
34:16
Speaker 1: listener mail. Yes, Josh, I'm gonna call this Gilligan's Island reference.
34:23
Speaker 1: I liked it all right. It starts out good, Um,
34:25
Speaker 1: this is from Dan and Fort Collins. I guess it's Colorado, right, Yeah, Hi,
34:30
Speaker 1: Chuck and Josh. Great red Dawn reference in the Honeybee episode.
34:34
Speaker 1: I wonder how many people got that. Remember when I
34:36
Speaker 1: said Wolverines was spray painted on the front. Yeah, wait
34:41
Speaker 1: till we go back in time? No, no, no, people
34:43
Speaker 1: remember it was just a couple of weeks ago. But Dan,
34:45
Speaker 1: no one actually notice that except for you. So far
34:48
Speaker 1: way to go, Dan, So you're you're on the ball. Uh.
34:51
Speaker 1: He points out that there was a class at Gilligan's
34:53
Speaker 1: Island episode, but weren't the all classic, he says, where
34:56
Speaker 1: a Beatles like group, the Mosquitoes, got stranded on the island.
35:00
Speaker 1: You remember that h was there? An was there an
35:03
Speaker 1: episode where someone didn't get stranded on the island, even
35:06
Speaker 1: Ja Ja Gabor got stranded there for reasons I can't remember.
35:09
Speaker 1: The castaways put together two groups of competing bands, one
35:12
Speaker 1: with the Guys, the other was the honey Bees featuring Ginger,
35:16
Speaker 1: Marry Ann and Mrs Howell. And you can see that
35:19
Speaker 1: on YouTube. He gives the address, but I'm sure you
35:21
Speaker 1: can search for that if you want to see it.
35:23
Speaker 1: When the Mosquitoes Bingo Bongo Bongo and Irving did get
35:29
Speaker 1: off the island, they sighted the honey Bees and said
35:31
Speaker 1: they had enough competition already and all. This is the
35:35
Speaker 1: course in reference to the Honeybee cast But it leads
35:37
Speaker 1: to this eternal question Ginger or Mary Anne. Ginger dances
35:41
Speaker 1: Mary Anne, Marry Anne. I say, Mrs Howell, cougar central buddy.
35:50
Speaker 1: Internal question. Okay, she's rich, she's old, she's experienced. I'll
35:59
Speaker 1: go Marryanto, though I think ultimately in the long run,
36:03
Speaker 1: definitely Marryan, although growing up as a young Baptist. It
36:07
Speaker 1: was very conflicting. It's the the classic scenario of of
36:11
Speaker 1: good girl, bad girl. Yeah, but ultimately, isn't the best
36:15
Speaker 1: to hope for an equal a balanced mixture of the two.
36:19
Speaker 1: Don't you want a good girl who knows how to
36:22
Speaker 1: be a bad girl as well? So you want Ginger
36:24
Speaker 1: and Marian? Yeah, I've got Ginger and Merry now. Uh.
36:29
Speaker 1: And he goes on to say hi to Josh and
36:31
Speaker 1: Jerry because he addressed it me. And how does Josh
36:34
Speaker 1: manage to say how stuff works dot com in time
36:38
Speaker 1: with the music at the end of every show? And
36:40
Speaker 1: then he says, Oh, I get it. Jerry does that wrong?
36:45
Speaker 1: That is just my natural timing. No, Jerry is the
36:48
Speaker 1: secret behind this mess. We all know that. Yeah. If
36:52
Speaker 1: if she even left in one beep, we would be
36:54
Speaker 1: in big trouble. Yeah. Well, if you have a compliment
36:58
Speaker 1: for Jerry, if you figured out that she is the
37:01
Speaker 1: sorceress behind this entire contraption, um, kudos to you. Send
37:06
Speaker 1: send the compliment to us in the email Bee, send
37:12
Speaker 1: a compliment. See leave that in Do you see this
37:15
Speaker 1: is what Jerry does? Send the compliment in an email
37:19
Speaker 1: to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For
37:27
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37:30
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