| DavidI |
01-16-2012 11:59 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by silverwhaletail
(Post 6491874)
Everyone likes happy endings. But you never mentioned whether or not there was a use of force or whether the suspect "gave up." I am betting that the suspect "gave up."
It's easy when the suspect gives up. There is no command decision to be made when the suspect "gives up." The tough call is when the suspect is inside the room and says, "***** you, we ain't coming out" or simply starts shooting through the door. Do you engage and suffer one of the many possible consequences? Save the hostage, suspect shoots the hostage, suspect shoots cop, or the most acute political emergency, cop shoots and kills hostage?
Enter that room to save the hostage, and the hostage gets killed, the Pelican Brain Trust says that should have retreated and waited him out.
Enter that room to save the hostage, and the cop gets killed, the Pelican Brain Trust says that the cop was a poor marksman.
Hold on the door and while you are waiting for swat, the suspect shoots the hostage and the Pelican Brain Trust says the the cops in the hallway were cowards.
Hold on the door until relieved by swat and the Pelican Brain Trust says that the paramilitary police jack booted thugs etc. entered the room for the express purpose of murdering the 16 year old gang member with the air soft pistol/bb gun.
And if a lawsuit results from any action/inaction, the Pelican Brain Trust says that the cop should be fired and imprisoned immediately WITH IMMEDIATE REVOCATION OF HIS SWEET, FAT POLICE PENSION. (THIS is the most important thing)
At my department we would have set an outer perimeter on the building and notified the swat and negotiation teams.
We would have also formed an entry team, but for the purpose of evacuating the building. When we got to a room that could not be cleared (the room with the suspect and possibly a hostage), we would have set containment (inner perimeter) on that room and hallway and continued evacuating rooms until all patients and staff had been evacuated.
If the suspect presented himself and/or forced a confrontation, then and only then would we have engaged him.
After the building was evacuated, we would have held on that door (where the suspect was barricaded) until relieved by swat.
After the hour and a half that it takes swat to muster/recon and deploy, if the suspect hasn't yet forced a confrontation, then swat will assume control of the scene.
All of this while the assistant city attorney stands by schitting his pants... and hoping that the suspect goes to sleep and the hostages walk out on their own.
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Silver, you are right in that we all love the happy endings. However, you and I know that sometimes it does not work out that way. In this case, there were some very difficult components added to it. First, some patients living in the care center suffered from dementia and did not comply with entry team's request. This was extremely difficult because we risked injuring one of them! Although we had a description of the suspect, we know sometimes they change clothes after committing a crime. This was a huge concern for me at the time. At the conclusion, the suspect did not passively submit when confronted by the team. He fought with them and one of my guys was injured. It was a risky situation, but I made the decision to send the team in based upon the exigent circumstances.
We did in fact contain the location and could have waited for the SWAT Team, but it was my decision as the Incident Commander to handle it. Like yourself, many of my years in policework were in high-risk, violent areas, and I am proud of that. We will always be second-guessed by monday morning arm chair quarterbacks, but that should not stop us from doing the right thing based upon the information at the time. I am not afraid to stand up for my decisions, whether they go well or bad.
Policework is ugly. There is no other way to describe it. We have a very short life expectancy after retirement too. As a friend, I would like to suggest a book for you: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0971725403/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=9342994884&ref=pd_sl_5jgq0993o8_b. It was given to me by a long-time SWAT guy who I held in the highest regard. We want to live many, many years after retirement my friend, David
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