The presence of heavily armed SWAT teams in big cities and small towns has normalized the militarization of the local police force, but it wasn’t always that way.
In 1965, the Los Angeles Police Department was caught off guard by the Watts riots, which lasted six days and required thousands of National Guardsmen to end.
In response, the LAPD developed highly-trained, heavily armed five-man teams to handle extraordinary events like hostage taking, high-powered shootouts and riots. The word SWAT is derived from the teams’ mission: Special Weapons and Tactics.
The LAPD SWAT teams initially displayed their training in 1969, when they attempted to serve warrants on two Black Panthers in an early morning raid. The encounter led to gun battle, but the team accomplished its task.
In 1974, SWAT teams gained a higher profile after a dramatic shootout with the Symbionese Liberation Army, which left five members of the terrorist organization dead. Soon big cities and small towns wanted their own SWAT teams too.
In the 1980s, SWAT teams were deployed to fight the War on Drugs and became a staple on the evening news, busting down doors and throwing suspects to the floor.
As their roles increased, so too did their firepower, thanks to government programs that transferred military equipment to local police departments for SWAT use.
So it came as little surprise that when SWAT teams lined up to confront protesters in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, they looked more like combat troops than peacekeepers.