SWAT

Recently the LAPD SWAT team suffered its first loss in its forty-one year history. The article intrigued me, probably because I recognized SWAT from many films and I wanted to know what it was truly like.

I found that in that 41 years, SWAT has been involved in many extreme cases with more at stake than this. Their first publicized mission, so to speak, was when they carried out search warrants in the Black Panther headquarters in 1996. Eight years later, they had a shootout with a self-proclaimed guerrilla group, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and in 1997, they engaged in a shootout with bank robbers in North Hollywood, which was one of the most publicized police situations in recent history. Through all this, even though some SWAT team members got injured, none got hurt. So why did their luck change, especially in a fight with just one man?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/109329