Different S.W.A.T. tactics

Bizarre police styles in recent incidents this month, September 2013. SWAT in Arkansas shoot dead a blind, deaf, 107-year-old man who did not shoot anyone, but the SWAT in D.C. leave the scene of an in-progress mass-shooting.

Related to this week's mass-shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington D.C. that killed 12 people:

Sep 18, 2013 - Atlantic Wire - Report: Assault Team Ordered to Stand Down During Navy Yard Shooting

A tactical unit of heavily-armed Capitol Police officers was near the scene of the Washington Navy Yard shooting as it happened, ready and capable of stepping in. But according to multiple sources speaking to the BBC, that unit was ordered to stand down and leave the scene, instead of helping the Municipal Police Department take down the shooter.

The officers, part of a four-man Containment and Emergency Response Team responsible for guarding the nearby Capitol, were "wearing full tactical gear and armed with HK-416 assault weapons" when they arrived near the scene of the then active mass shooting on Monday morning, according to the BBC. Here's what allegedly happened next:

According to a Capitol Police source, an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Washington DC's main municipal force, told the Capitol Cert officers they were the only police on the site equipped with long guns and requested their assistance in searching for the gunman.

When the Capitol Police team radioed in to their superiors, they were told by a watch commander to leave the scene, the BBC was told.

The Capitol Police are pulling radio logs from Monday morning to investigate the incident, according to a spokesperson for the agency, who added that the department provided "mutual support and assistance" in the aftermath of the shooting.

The Sep 18, 2013 - BBC - Navy Yard: Swat team 'stood down' at mass shooting scene

One of the first teams of heavily armed police to respond to Monday's shooting in Washington DC was ordered to stand down by superiors, the BBC can reveal.

A tactical response team of the Capitol Police, a force that guards the US Capitol complex, was told to leave the scene by a supervisor instead of aiding municipal officers.

The Capitol Police department has launched a review into the matter.

Aaron Alexis, 34, killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.

"I don't think it's a far stretch to say that some lives may have been saved if we were allowed to intervene," a Capitol Police source familiar with the incident told the BBC.

The S.W.A.T in Arkansas take a different approach.

Sep 9, 2013 - USA Today - Ark. SWAT officers kill man, 107, in standoff

Sep 9, 2013 - Guns.com - S.W.A.T. team fatally shoots “blind” and “deaf” 107-year-old Arkansas man

107 years old. Blind. Deaf. Did not harm anyone. He had a gun, but he did not shoot anyone.

Sep 8, 2013 - Daily Kos - 107-Year-Old Killed by SWAT team

Apparently the SWAT folks in Pine Bluff Arkansas couldn’t figure out a way to deal with a 107 holed up in a room with a handgun other than shoot him to death.

Granted, anybody with a handgun presents a challenge to peace officers, but when the perp is 107 years old and holed up in a room of a private residence, the first thing that might have occurred to the SWAT people is to play a waiting game.

The old man, Monroe Isadore, had pointed a gun at two people in the home, prompting the call to the police, but Isadore allowed the two to exit to safety when the officers arrived. He then retreated to a bedroom. When police approached he fired through the closed bedroom door. No one was injured.

Subsequently police snaked a video camera into the room which determined that Isadore was in fact armed with a handgun. SWAT officials assert they fired “gas” into the room when “negotiations didn’t work”, and then Isadore fired at officers and they fired back, killing him.

The question I have is—if Monroe Isadore was isolated in a bedroom of a private home, and police were in sensible defensive positions because he had discharged his weapon once at them already, how was it that the police later exposed themselves so that Isadore could fire on them again, providing a rationale for the blaze of gunfire that killed him? If they already had a camera in the room and could observe what he was doing, how could he have made any sort of move that was not telegraphed far in advance? Seems to me a good plan would have been to just keep talking to the guy, even if it went nowhere. Sooner or later a 107-year-old is going to nod off and drop his gun.

So the Arkansas SWAT group goes in hard against a 107-year-old with a handgun, but the D.C. SWAT leaves the scene of a mass shooting where people are being killed, and it's possible that the D.C. SWAT team may have saved lives if they went in hard.

Whacked.
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