Month: September 2010

Murphy is with us

S.W.A.T. Sounds impressive. Conjures up images of steely-eyed, square-jawed, resolute men in black gear kicking in doors, rolling across the ground and coming up with pistols at the ready, and generally doing in the bad guys with panache and manly, testosterone-laden gusto.

Weeeeeellllll…. sort of. Every agency wants a SWAT team, if only for the cool factor. There is a need for them- the old saw is that when the police need to be bailed out of a dangerous situation, they call SWAT. And the tactical guys do have the training, experience, and equipment to deal with situations that the ordinary patrol cop isn’t prepared to handle- high-risk search warrants against violent felons, barricaded gunmen, active shooters, and hostage rescue. But the reality can get pretty far from Hollywood’s fantasies.

For one thing, no one regulates SWAT teams. Any agency with a few guys and some black nomex can throw bodies in the back of a van and call it a SWAT team; and, unfortunately, some do. The smaller the agency, the more likely that is. The reason is largely financial. Smaller agencies can’t afford the overtime salary for extra training, the ammunition costs (which can be quite substantial- 1000 rounds per month per operator is barely sufficient to keep the level of marksmanship skill required; at $334/1000 rounds, $3340 for a ten man team per month, $40,080 per year just for practice ammo for the swat team), the equipment costs… so the teams don’t get the training they need, never really gel as a working team, and it shows in their performance. Mid-sized agencies (100-500 employees) are in the grey area of being able to field a really respectable team if they play their cards right. Large and metro agencies are really the only ones who can afford to have those teams operate full-time.

But, I’ve had the honor of serving on two different mid-size agency SWAT teams that, for all their problems, worked well as a team and got the job done despite the budget handicaps. Working as a team in this respect means a lot more than corporate teamwork. When you and a teammate enter a room to clear it of hostiles, you each take half the room as your own. You have to know that the guy going in the room with you has got his half of the room and you’re not going to get shot in the back. You have to trust him to shoot a target one foot from you without error, if it came to that. When you get a team that works that well together, you’ve got a formidable tactical unit.

This isn’t to say that things always go smoothly. Ooohh, no; far from it. Murphy, in the title of this post, is “Murphy’s Law” Murphy: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. And even in the world of meticulously planned tactical operations with highly trained and competent tactical operators, Murphy’s always around the corner, ready to screw up your operation. And I’ve got countless examples of those.

And, since A) I’m never one to turn down a teaching opportunity; B) I haven’t got any pride; if an embarrassing screw-up can be used to emphasize a teaching point, I’ll tell stories on myself; and C) some of them are pretty funny; I’ll relate some of them to you. Posts with “Murphy” in the title will probably have one or more of these stories. This one isn’t exactly a “Murphy”, per se; but I found myself thinking about it last night.

Most of our tactical operations were in support of the Narcotics unit as high-risk search warrants. When the drug boys developed a suspect and got enough for a search and/or arrest warrant, they did a risk assessment on him- prior criminal history, history of violent acts, possession of weapons and propensity to use them, fortifications, surveillance, etc. etc. If the risk assessment scores high enough, they bring in the SWAT team to execute the warrant. This one was no different; a fairly low-level drug dealer known to have weapons and a violent past living in a one-story three-bedroom with his wife and child. We planned the warrant for early in the morning, to catch him in bed (and therefore less likely to react quickly) and suited up. Door is breached quickly, team enters and spreads out, calling out “Sheriff! Search warrant!” at the top of our voices. The den and kitchen area are cleared in seconds and the team enters the hallway with the bedrooms. I get to the master bedroom door with my second- it’s locked, but he gives it a good kick and it comes open right away. The wife is standing by the door in a nightie; and, instead of being hysterical and screaming like most, is standing there rather dejected, hands in the air, a “not this again” look on her face, as if this were a common occurrence for her. Well, married to a drug dealer, it probably was. My second got her proned out for handcuffing while I focused my attention on the husband, standing on the other side of the bed, naked as the day he was born. He had his hands up as I started to approach him from across the room, keeping my MP5 subgun in a high-ready position, yelling at him to get on the ground.

And get on the ground he starts to do… and then he lunges under the bed and out of sight. The first thing that pops into my head as he disappears is that he’s going for a weapon and I suck my BDU pants up my asshole. He pops up again, right into my sights, and I see he’s got a baggie and not a gun, and my finger slackens up off the trigger…

Crap! He grabbed his stash bag and ran for the toilet to flush it. I dropped the MP5 to hang on its sling and ran after him into the bathroom. He’d dropped the bag in the toilet and was reaching for the handle. I tackled him across the chest, got an arm under his chin, and started pulling him away from the toilet into the tub behind me. He was gripping the toilet bowl, trying to pull himself forward enough to flush. Gripping so hard, in fact, that he moved the toilet enough to break the water supply line behind the wall. We stayed at this impasse for what seemed like minutes (in reality, more like 8-10 seconds); him straining to reach the handle and me straining to pull him back while calling for a “second” at the top of my lungs. When a team member made it into the bathroom to help, the first thing he did was start laughing.

OK, fine, so seeing me wrestle a naked guy off a toilet is amusing, but can you give me a hand here? We got the guy subdued and handcuffed and fished his drugs out of the toilet, and my second finally told me why he was laughing. Seems that while the MP5 was hanging from it’s sling while I was sprawled out with the naked bad guy, the muzzle of the subgun was resting on the head of the bad guy’s penis. Had he tried to grab my gun, he probably would have blown his johnson off.

Aaaah, all in a day’s work.

Southern Tier Creme Brulee Stout

I first had this at a restaurant in downtown Athens. Can’t remember the name of it, but it was a block from the 40 Watt. They had quite a few stouts, and would let you have samples if you were having trouble deciding what you wanted. The name called to me… Creme Brulee; what’s not to like? You know Creme Brulee; a rich, custard base with a hard caramelized topping (or a flan, same thing with a soft or liquid caramel top).

The sample came in a shot glass, and I knew from the first sniff that this was going to be what I was ordering. It smelled, in fact, exactly like a Creme Brulee. And the taste? Well, it’s a stout; so the first taste is what you’d expect from a stout, malty, but sweet as it is a milk stout, and smoother than a lot of the dry stouts. There’s also a noticeable vanilla flavor and an aftertaste of… yup, Creme Brulee.

It’s a sweet stout, to be sure; and like any milk stout, it’s damn near a meal in itself. The sweetness may turn some away but, damn, that’s a tasty beer. It’s a summer seasonal, and only available in a pony keg or 22oz bottle; so either share it with a friend or prepare to stay in for the evening- 10% alcohol by volume.