From Albuquerque to Miami, tactical units have not only harassed innocent people but time and again have shot and killed unarmed civilians. In a recent case in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a man was killed when a SWAT team shot him and then burned his house down. And increasingly tactical officers are shooting each other because of confusion and overzealousness, as was recently the case in Oxford California, where Sgt. Daniel Christian dispatched his comrade Officer James Jensen with three shotgun blasts(Snow).

Critics of SWAT say that this militarized training, weaponry and organization is leading to an ever more belligerent police culture. "The fundamental problem with the SWAT model is that if police become soldiers, the community becomes the enemy," says criminologist Tony Platt, one of the first scholars to study SWAT. Also, the more paramilitary police units are, the more policing in general is militarized. Portland Oregon, has already given some of its regular cops AR-15s, as has Orlando, Florida. Numerous smaller towns, such as Pinole, California, are even replacing standard police shotguns with H&K MP-54s(Clark).

Certainly SWAT teams have their advocates-many of them. Defenders insist that today's well-armed criminal element warrants special tactics and weaponry and that in highly volatile situations, SWAT teams help preserve the safety of the public, police and even criminals. They point out that a SWAT team's overwhelming show of force often ensures that no shots are fire(James). Police and law enforcement experts say the rise in violent drug related crimes and the threat of international terrorism alone justify having SWAT teams.

Throughout the nation, paramilitary, SWAT or tactical policing-that is, law enforcement that uses the equipment, training, rhetoric and group tactics of war is on the rise. According to a study by sociologist Peter Kraska, the nation has more than 30,000 such heavily armed, militarily trained police units(James). Fist developed in 1966 by a young LAPD commander named Daryl Gates, SWAT teams were conceived of as an urban counterinsurgency bulwark. Gates started with the acronym SWAT and then filled it in with the name "Special Weapons Attack Team." His superiors liked the acronym but found the name a bit too proactive, so it was toned down to the more technical sounding "Special Weapons and Tactics"(Clark)

Supporters of SWAT agree that their task is different to a soldier's and that they have to operated within the law, but insist that most do so. David Klinger, a professor at the University of Missouri and former Los Angeles police officer, says the police forces are quite justified in using military techniques and hardware when trying to rescue hostages, and in other tight corners, provided SWAT teams are properly trained. The use of military tactics to "dominate" an area can actually reduce the chances of a shooting, he claims. In the course of conducting a study of SWAT teams for the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Department of Justice, Mr. Klinger has interviewed dozens of SWAT officers. "Most understand that they're operating under the same constraints as other police officers," he says(Snow).

Between 1995 and 1997, the Department of Defense gave police departments 1.2 million pieces of military hardware, including 73 grenade launchers, more than 3,800 M-16 automatic assault rifles, 2,185 M-14 semiautomatic rifles and 112 armored personnel carriers. Police forces throughout the country have been given M-16 assault rifles. The LAPD has 600 of them(Green).

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2610
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)