Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
As regular readers know, I'm a USAF veteran (I was a security police officer in SAC during the cold war) and have extensive civilian police service, including SWAT duty. I have been writing on the Erik Scott case In Las Vegas since August of 2010. Those extensive posts are available in our Erik Scott archive.
The Jose Guerena shooting, which took place on May 5, is similar in many ways. My co-blogger, Bob's May 25 story on the Pajamas Media site (here ) has stimulated considerable interest in the story on the Net. What I've yet to see is concise information that would allow people who don't have police and/or tactical team backgrounds to better understand what appears to have happened in this case. To that end, I'll explain why SWAT teams exist, what purpose(s) they should serve, how they should work, and proper police procedure in any case where the police have shot a citizen.
I'll also analyze the brief-less then 60 seconds-police video of the actual shooting (it may be found here ). Please keep in mind that I am working only from media and Internet accounts, including the aforementioned video and other documents released by the Pima County Sheriff's Office, the law enforcement entity involved. As such, I don't have all of the facts, and as Donald Rumsfeld might say, there are unknown unknowns. In other words, I don't know enough about this specific incident to know precisely what I don't know.
That said, I hope to produce at least a reasonable foundation for understanding what seems to have happened on May 5. Go here and here for local media accounts of the incident.