Organization
The relative infrequency of SWAT call-outs means these expensively-trained and equipped officers cannot be left to sit around, waiting for an emergency. In many departments the officers are normally deployed to regular duties, but are available for SWAT calls via pagers, mobile phones or radio transceivers. Even in the larger police agencies, such as the Los Angeles PD, SWAT personnel would normally be seen in crime suppression roles—specialized and more dangerous than regular patrol, perhaps, but the officers would not be carrying their distinctive armor and weapons.
Although due to Officers having to be on call-out most of the day, they may be assigned to regular patrol. To decrease response times to serious situations that need the direct attention of SWAT Officers, it is now a widely used method to place SWAT equipment and weaponry in secured lockers in the trunks of specialized police cruisers. Such departments that need to use this are Sheriffs due to the size of the counties and places like Los Angeles traffic may be high so LAPD use cruisers to respond with their Officers so they do not have to return to the police building. Although for heavier duty equipment they may need to depending on the situation that arises.
By illustration, the LAPD's website shows that in 2003, their SWAT units were activated 255 times, for 133 SWAT calls and 122 times to serve high-risk warrants.
The New York Police Department's Emergency Service Unit is one of the few civilian police special-response units that operate autonomously 24 hours a day. However, this unit also provides a wide range of services, including search and rescue functions, and vehicle extraction, normally handled by fire departments or other agencies.
The need to summon widely-dispersed personnel, then equip and brief them, makes for a long lag between the initial emergency and actual SWAT deployment on the ground. The problems of delayed police response at the 1999 Columbine High School shooting has led to changes in police response, mainly rapid deployment of line officers to deal with an active shooter, rather than setting up a perimeter and waiting for SWAT to arrive.
Read more about this topic: SWAT
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