SWAT team bulks up with armor

[JimR]

Can someone please explain how police would reasonably use this thing tactically? They had to go back 16 years for an example of a case when it might have been used.

Why not just train a police marksman?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><A HREF="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20000813-0010_1m13armor.html" TARGET=_blank>
SWAT team bulks up with armor </A>

Victim-rescue unit to be used during hostage situations
By Joe Hughes
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 13, 2000

The newest police cruiser soon to hit San Diego streets will hardly look the part.

Yes, it will be painted black and white, and equipped with the obligatory lights and sirens. But all other comparisons to traditional police units will end there.

This is a 5-ton, armor-plated, bullet-resistant assault and rescue vehicle called the Peacekeeper.

Obtained at no cost as military surplus from the Air Force, the Peacekeeper has gun portholes, a roof slightly arched so gasoline from Molotov cocktails can trickle off, and it is even able to withstand grenade attacks.

San Diego police will use it primarily during hostage situations involving barricaded suspects -- often when officers are locked in gunbattles and need to get closer to someone holding people captive.

It also may be sent out during earthquakes, floods, fires and other disasters, and will be available for use by any county law agency.

"We have sorely needed a victim-rescue vehicle for some time," said San Diego police Lt. Ray Shay, who commands the department's Special Weapons and Tactics unit. "It will help remove officers and citizens from harm's way."

Police agencies nationwide are obtaining armored-type vehicles to combat criminals' increased firepower. Some agencies have acquired surplus military vehicles, similar to the San Diego police version. Others are converting armored money-transport vans.

Shay said such a vehicle might have helped police July 18, 1984, the day of the McDonald's massacre in San Ysidro, when a gunman held dozens of people hostage and officers at bay. Twenty-one people were killed and 14 were wounded.

"Yes, we could have used it there," said Shay, who was one of dozens of officers dispatched to the scene. "It may have been able to save some lives."

Before the Peacekeeper starts keeping the peace in San Diego, it needs about $30,000 worth of restoration and outfitting. The nonprofit San Diego Police Foundation, created to help raise money for police equipment and training, is seeking donations from the public.

For the past few days the distinctive-looking, four-wheel-drive, military-gray vehicle has been undergoing sandblasting at R.W. Little on Pacific Highway in Middletown after being transported to San Diego from a Wyoming military base where it was mothballed.

The Air Force last used the 1960s-vintage vehicle, price-tagged then at $100,000, to patrol missile silos worldwide. Police officers even found a pair of old dog tags while cleaning it out.

With a half-inch of armor plating and small, bullet-resistant windows, the vehicle can withstand blasts from most high-powered handguns and rifles, said SWAT Officer Bernard Updike.

There is room inside for a half-dozen officers or rescued hostages.

"It will be ideal for victim rescues, which can be very dangerous operations," Updike said. "With this, we can get up close to the hostile action."

Updike said SWAT officers, with body armor and shields, still are often no match for some of the firepower being directed at them in many incidents.

This is the San Diego Police Department's second experience with a victim-rescue vehicle.

An armored, all-terrain, amphibious vehicle bought in 1985 to help police in life-threatening situations was sold about four years ago to a Los Angeles man who provides vehicles for movies.

Police found that vehicle too bulky and unreliable. For years it sat behind the department's Western Division station at Friars Road and Napa and Gaines streets, for sale but unwanted, its gun ports filled with rainwater.

The vehicle cost $150,000, making it one of the more expensive pieces of equipment ever bought for the department. It was regarded as a mechanical nightmare in need of work. Parts were hard to find.

The Peacekeeper is built on a Dodge chassis, and parts are available, so police are hoping for a better outcome this time.

Wenda Alvarez, president and chief executive officer of the Police Foundation, said people interested in donating for the restoration can call (619) 296-9110. A benefit golf tournament will be held at Steele Canyon Golf Club on Sept. 13 to raise funds.

"The opportunity to bring community giving and public safety together is the foundation's principal role," Alvarez said. "There are thousands of citizens, businesses and organizations that share a concern for the work of the San Diego Police Department. Our job is to let people know what the department needs and the benefits of meeting those needs, then ask for help."

Depending on donations, the armored vehicle could be operating in two months.
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[This message has been edited by JimR (edited August 14, 2000).]

[John/az2]

Oh, they'll find some reason to use it...It's a much better alternative than letting the people arm themselves. After all, they might get hurt!

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John/az
"When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!
www.cphv.com

[Jack M]

Talk about PC double talk! "Victim rescue vehicle" " This thing might have saved some lives." Can you picture Patton "If we are going to persuade Rommell to behave in a more responible manner, we will need a lot more life saving, victim rescue vehicles. Maybe with a nice floral pattern on the front!" AAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!

[Jeff Thomas]

Built on a Dodge chassis, from the 1960's, and they think this will be more reliable? Did the first one run at all?


I imagine there might be some instance when this could be helpful, perhaps like the N. Hollywood bank robbery. But, how could this help with a situation like the McDonalds massacre, where there is a gunman inside shooting people?

Live and let live. Regards from AZ

[dinosaur]

Remember in L.A. when the police used a Brinks truck to rescue some of the wounded? That`s ideally what it would be used for. ESU in NYC has at least one, possibly two. It`s been a long time since I saw them. They have to be flatbedded and you shouldn`t see them on the street unless you have a situation like L.A. had. The last time I can recall the NYPD using one was around 1971 at the seige at the sporting goods store on Broadway in Brooklyn. It was used to rescue civilians and officers who were pinned down by gunfire from the store. That included one ESU officer who was killed at the beginning. It took a couple of hours to get it there so they`re not really that mobile. It`s a worst case scenario piece of equipment.

[This message has been edited by dinosaur (edited August 14, 2000).]

[C.R.Sam]

Ah yes, San Diego; where the law coldly executed the man who stole a tank. Tank immobilized, driver essentialy trapped inside and no longer a danger to others.

"We don need no tear gas or pepper spray when we can look down the hatch and shoot him at point blank range."

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Sam I am, grn egs n packin

Nikita Khrushchev predicted confidently in a speech in Bucharest, Rumania on June 19, 1962 that: " The United States will eventually fly the Communist Red Flag...the American people will hoist it themselves."

[TexasVet]

50BMG will penetrate 1/2 inch of armor. Old rule of thumb in the science of armor- it takes a little more armor thickness than the caliber of the round you wish to stop. Now they have just upped the arms race a little more.

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Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club
68-70

[mrat]

Ditto on what Dinosar said. In North Hollywood fiasco the LAPD borrowed a armored car to rescue officers and civilians that were shot.

[Dangus]

This is absolutely rediculous. I'd sure as hell rather risk occasional hostage crisis and whatnot than live in a country where the police drive tanks. This must be stopped. Why do we keep putting up with this crap? We have more numbers, we have more votes. We can put a stop to this bs and then make other serious changes as well. We need to organize.

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I twist the facts until they tell the truth. -Some intellectual sadist

The Bill of Rights is a document of brilliance, a document of wisdom, and it is the ultimate law, spoken or not, for the very concept of a society that holds liberty above the desire for ever greater power. -Me

[Erick Gelhaus]

Someone asked when this might be needed? Another scenario like North Hollywood and even Citizen / Officer Down Rescues, such as Reginald Denny or other situations that have happened throughout the country.

[Longshot]

Great. Now every local police department will want its own "Waco-Mobile". Maybe they can deploy miniature stinger missles to disable vehicles travelling more than 10mph over the speed limit?

I feel safer already

Okay, maybe I'm overreacting, but isn't this arms race between police departments getting a little "trendy"? For example, our neighboring city, low crime & upper middle class, population under 25,000 with no freeway passing through it and no roads rated above 35mph, has three Camaro pursuit cars. Is that practical? I also feel like a lot of smaller departments in relatively quiet areas have MP5's and SWAT teams when they are never, ever needed. It seems that county or state SWAT teams could cover the action if anything came up, and we could save some tax dollars.

I sure don't want to under-equip officers, but we need some balance.

I'd like to hear some different opinions on this. I'm open to hearing justification for this equipment.

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NRA/GOA/SAF/USMC

Oregon residents please support the Oregon Firearms Federation, our only "No compromise" gun lobby. http://www.oregonfirearms.org

[mussi]

It could just be used to save people. Yeah.

Anybody who served in the infantry around here? Ever got rescued from a battlefield. Such a big vehicle will be a prime target for any hollow-charge rocket like an RPG or a LAW that happens to reside neraby. Of course, not counting all these .50s, 20mm cannons and other stuff, including steel core .308 ammo.
Real felons will have that equipment now they know what the other side has bought.

I prefer to lay down suppressive and then get my buddy out. The cops who had that fabulous idea to shell out the money for this vehicle will find out what experienced infantry does.

[Mikul]

The article mentions the increased firepower of today's criminals. Is this true? Are the criminals using more powerful weapons than in the past? Aside from the LA bank robbery, I've never heard of anything other than ordinary pistols and rifles, but I frequently see the police armed with machine guns (well, more frequently than I used to). If anything the disparity of firepower has move greatly toward the police's favor.

[Coinneach]

Criminals are still using .22s and .25s, unless I've missed something on Da Nooz. "Increased firepower" is a red herring; the only people buying heavier stuff are the good (non-LE) guys, who don't kill cops in the first place.

More militarization of the police: another front in The War On Some Drugs.

[Karanas]

This reminds me of the first "Die Hard" movie.
What were the words of the terrorist, Hans Gruber, after the LAPD armored car lay burning on the steps of the Nakatomi Towers?
"Hit it again".

Yippee ki yi, M-F!

[ModIMark0]

Interesting to note the N. Hollywood shootout reference and LAPD's lack of armored vehicles. I recall seeing the LAPD having a V100/150/200 type APC during the LA riots, and am sure that I had seen it in a pic of them prepping for potential problems at the DNC's convention. I wonder why it was not used.
Funny to hear of the Peacekeeper being procured too. I recall a Air Force security policeman complaining in the book 'Nuclear Heartland' about how the chassis is not built to take the weight of all that armor plate, and the the Peacekeepers start to fall apart. I think the engine might be underpowered for the task too. But I don't think the San Diego police department will be putting the mileage on that Peacekeeper like the Air Force usually did.

[bullseye]

Gore wants to increase the policing of our neighborhoods. That is part of the Democratic agenda. The sheeple don't want to be responsible for their own welfare and protection. They want big government to do it for them and they are willing to pay more and more taxes so the police can become more militarized everyday. Guaranteed if CA. had shall issue CCW there would be less "victims" and less need for this sort of police armed build up.

[Erick Gelhaus]

LAPD has two armored vehicles & they used both of them on that day in Feb '97.

Looking at this from a cop's point of view, apparently I have a serious problem understanding what the problem is.

The vehicles that are going to agencies via DRMO are 4 wheel Peace Keepers from the USAF, not Panhards, Cadillac-Gage or M113 APC's.

San Diego SD lost a deputy under fire during an operation in '97, Lonnie Brewer. One of these could have extracated him. I haven't finished going through the list of members of a national assoctiation of tactical officers killed or murdered during call-outs since the 80's - it came in the mail today; but I find a few more who would have benefitted from this equipment.

I'm probably not going to change your minds, nor will you change mine. So, in the words of one of my heroes, I'll go back to my cave now.

[Dangus]

There are ClassIIIA ballistic see-thru shields, there are full suits of assault body armor. All of which are just as effective as this class of vehicle due to being a much smaller profile, and having similar ballistic stopping power. If departments would equip their guys with proper body armor for such situations, than APCs would not be needed. A FEW cities may have an excuse to have them, but I personally despise the over-militarization between police departments, and the increasing arms race between various presincts.

"We've got a tank now Bob!"

"Dammit man, now we've gotta shell out the cash for our own Apache attack helicopter with felon seeking laser guided rockets!"

"haha, bet you wished you had thought of the tank eh? Woulda cost you a lot less. hahahaa"

"yeah, well, you know, this is war after all"

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I twist the facts until they tell the truth. -Some intellectual sadist

The Bill of Rights is a document of brilliance, a document of wisdom, and it is the ultimate law, spoken or not, for the very concept of a society that holds liberty above the desire for ever greater power. -Me

[mrat]

I just got done reading the account of the Swat teams at Columbine. They had to use a fire truck to get up to the building and while rescuing people. I think they could of used them there also. I am sure if we researched every police action in the country we could come up with a lot more.

I am with Erick on this one.

[Dangus]

Well, first of all, they were in the school and could have killed those two monsters.

Second of all, I don't think that the firetruck ever took so much as one bullet the whole time.

Thirdly, they were treating the whole situation like a hostage crisis, and so a tank would have been of little use.

Lastly, towns of that size so rarely have such incidents. You are more likely to get struck by lightning and killed than to be a victim of a school shooting. That's pretty damn rare. With 255 million people, and a media that latches on to anything, such incidents become vastly overstated in their national significance.

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I twist the facts until they tell the truth. -Some intellectual sadist

The Bill of Rights is a document of brilliance, a document of wisdom, and it is the ultimate law, spoken or not, for the very concept of a society that holds liberty above the desire for ever greater power. -Me

[Coinneach]

Okay, so the taxpayers (that's ALL of us, folks) are supposed to shell out eleventy-gazillion dollars for yet another cop toy that gets used legitimately once every ten years?

I don't THINK so.

YOu watch: within 6 months, this beast will be used in an illegal no-knock, and likely on the wrong house.

LEOs, you are NOT military! Get over it!

[EchoFiveMike]

This thing is probably a V150, so it's a toy. Cal 50 or decent steel core from a 30-06 or better still M993 7.62 tungsten core AP will turn it into a collander. Or failing that, a couple of Molotovs and you get to hear the screams of burning men( and maybe copchicks too)and get to smell burned pork (not a cop joke, what it smells like) The cops need to realize that they are not military, the military needs to learn (actually the politicians need to learn) that we're not cops. This toy would last 15 seconds vs trained grunts. And criminals tend to be idiots. So what do they need it for? Semper Fi...Ken

[Nestor Rivera]

Hey, guys if I remember right there are a load of M8 Greyhounds still around maybe your local police force will get a turreted "rescue vehicle".

And for the true SWAT team the Russians have a BOAT LOAD of T-55 T-62 etc. ready willing and able FOB your town.

All comedy aside there may be a few situations that need this type of vehicle, but a retrofitted suburban would be just as good and a LOT less conspicous(sp) with a lot less parts replacment problems.

[Ossi]

I live in Finland, and when the LE needs an armored vehicle here they loan a Sisu XA-180 wheeled APC from the nearest military base. Totally normal here, happens maybe once a year. The procedure is made simple so the LE gets one within hours and there is no need for police to buy own armored vehicles. Don't know if that could work in the USA.

Ossi