th AT ,1 5 tii5 SLA gs the b natit Ange SWA unit train 'SW T-ac"ti Perspectives: he Friday Night ar robhery, stage a riot, set up a authorities. IN 1969, in the first month of local police matters 1te): e arm ,,, sniper situation or "rcIse Mk- After disturhances fstteing Richard Nixtin's prestlency, nli- ing to many specialists in ing a harricaded gtUnman sit if the 1968 sasstnzition Wit 7 it- ;n ibility req tirement or :aking stitutional law, prohihibed u By IANDA 1SISIND a house," says SWAT ttot'>r oLuther King, the e'ret ty of thi.s course were :-e d to a- Article IV of the Cnsttic 5:51) P.M. on May 17. 1974, Sergeant Bernie Rima. Ilefense estahlished the ihrec- ists military reserve officisits, Article IV guarantees ed Ilos Angeles pilicemsan According t Bock, C1S i trate of Civil Distur same Plan enitir law enforcetne it fnfic:,tis, intervention against 'diin Iin frotit of a .uspected erations are 60 per ciintffen- ning atid Operations tts'er ye- mayors, tire chiefs, and ctil violence" in states -si9 ' i-n hideout ind tired a tear sire, 40 per cent defnsv '.- - named Directorate of Miliry defense personnel. plication of the legiatur" grenade. This action, and tense gets the ed;ge, tle explis, Stpportl to direct all Defense Its 1971, the last yeor f <' r governor (when the lcgsa tattle that follitwed, hrought because SWAT is "tled 'n only Department actisities iii the which figures are a1ivlaile, x25 cannot be convened).' nal attention to the Los Ihen ither methods tiare faI- domestic front. mlilitory people and it :vilisns As a 1972 Attorney Gene les Police tieptirtment's ed. Earlier that year, the s : ri y took the course. The Law Fn- report prepared under Ric T tit - the first police SWAT member,ses- :lin- opened its doors at TIe ilititr forcement Assistance Admittis- Kleindienst notes, the Army in the country ito employ teers from the LPP;m metro- police school at Fort tGorldon, ration is now exoanding ti e ceptis its role if assiting ficeilly military isietics and pittitan division, ad tue oper- Gleorgia, for its first "' vii program, and paying per diem lirv enforcement "at'S cc ing. ate as ordinary police officers Disturbance Orientation Course" and travel expenses for those ance", since "identi'uio ):s 1Ar rsaeal Weatons tnd most of the time. In the aost, for senior officials. The week civilian participitis sho reqoest police activity is not in con lwan ,%8 when they have been deloyed to ona , sesio incus, dicussion it ance with its mission of nati an- nder tisse. Jer<,l tin- or ' al' S :hard }ac- a ith anal the tAPI) re-ilired that "ordin- ary street piliscmen didn't have the expertise or achiesement needed to hanile 'iterrilla groups," sccordin to S W \ T Sergeant Rod Bock. The idea has proved poptilor: a growing nimber of police departments across the country have come to rely on military perspectives and planning. The LAPD at first turned to the U.S. Marines at nearby Camp Pendleton for advice and training. With the Marines, they developed the concept of work- ing in four to five member teams, composed of s leader, marksman, observer, scout and rear guard. Bock acknaivledges that this concept cane f r o m Vietnam. "WE COULDN'T use il of 'he military tactics they use," Bock says. "If you're in a war, the military just destroys the hoase. We try to capture and appte- hend rather than slay . . 99 percent of the time no shots are fired." SWAT teams car' semii-,uto- matic weapons, hand gn., gas masks, gas canisters, sm ike de- vices, roves, pry h-rs, minhole hooks and walkie talkie radios. Additional equioment t--ilwis them in a step van wh "sserves as a mobile comm.md its'lit: ar- mored vests steel hel t:; . extra ammunition, hattering r-tntsand medi 'it supplies. Altho>igh most SW ,\ iem- hers hase salreadvy nis mitlitary experience,they re-e tint-c than 1.000 hours 'if tstrsetion in such s'ibjects as the history of guerrilla warfare, scouting andi patrolling, camouflge and concealment, combat in "b'ilt- sup areas", chemical agents rnd first aid. 'THEY ALSO trionsit :he "Gui- versal Studios oiie set, a iore urban setting where almost y m situation can he set tip :md studied. "We can f-se a bk rescue hostages, protect visiting dignitaries - includi ig the Ire- sident and Vice-president, res- cue officers under fire or threatened by harricaded su- spects, and protect crow icon- trol officers at demonstrations, rock festivals or at civil disturb- ances, particularly when thcrn was a threat of sniper attack. MOST LARGE American cit- ies, as well as the FBI, now have SWAT-type units or are developing them. The LAPD still receives four to five re- quests a week for officers and material to train men in o'her cities. On the federal level, the de- fense and justice departmeitG' planning for dealing with civil disturbances goes back to 1903, after the voter regis"ration ca ii- paigns in Mississippi and Ala- bama. In that year, "the laint Chiefs xif Staff instructed the U.S.. Strike Command to prepare de- Sailed plans for the deploy- sent of civil disturance farc- es . . . within the con'inemial United States, ' accordin to the U.S. Attorney General in his 1972 Annual Report. The Strike Command's p1an, STUAP IIt I,, called for the detulivment of tsp to 21,00 troons. In 1964, at resi-i-E-t -lohnson s request, the army 'iegan to e- nand its program of riot ccn- trol instruction for senior ariy officials. the Na-ion f u a t d, snd civilian auth-wities desigiot- ed bs' the FBI. ARMY EFFORTS accele,-- ted again in 1967, following the riots in Detroit and disturbances in 150 other cities. The army es- tablished a task force to study its role in civil disturban.'as; snonsored conferences on civil distitrhances to disctiss l-sison between ariy, National ttisrd siid local officials; and estab- lished a formal nolicy f >r the loan of its equipment to civilian of post civil disturbance cper- ations, manifestations of disn,-nt, police- press- community rela- tions, operational techniques, in- teragency authority and respon- sibility, use of munitions and equipment and evalss-ston of community plans and prepara- tions. At a similar course, set sip by the State of Ciiforna at Camp San Luis Obispo and fsund- ed by the LEAA, the urricul'm focuses on problems aid reme- dies on the state level, before federal involvement is required. Such federal involvement in defense." Linda Siskind /at been a Ba Area free lance journalist for /he last year, before which she awas nris director of Bay Area Pacifisca radio station KPFA. (Copyright Pacific News Serv- ice, 1974. MAichigan Daily Edited and managed by Students at the University of Michigan Thursday, June 6, 1974 News Phone: 764-0552 Myopia revisite SOME DAYS IT SEEMS like every chimp with access to a typewriter is pounding out legible, grammatically correct copy abost Patricia Hearst, or the Symbionese Liberation Army, or both. Where is Rose Mary Woods now that we really need her? Kidding aside, there are serious questions about the newspaper heiress who disappeared one night and about the shadowv organization calling itself the SLA. Unfor- tunately. most nuroorted answers to these questions are hedeed about with assumipi ions, myths, and dogma, and ultimatelvgenerate more questions than they answer. But almost no one has made a concerted effort to examine the role of law enforcement groups in the entire caper. In the articles on this page, attention is devoted exclusively to the part the army and the police played In what has come to be known as the Friday evening war, because we as citizens are responsible for monitor- ing the behavior of public servants. As Mario Savio said in his cover letter, "For failure to arouse the majority of the people to the growing menace of a police state, we might find that we had lost what little is left of our civil liberties." -MARNIE HEYN .. and the police By MARIO SAVIO A ROUND MIDNIGHT three nights after t h e Friday evening shootout between the Sym- bionese Liberation Army and the Los Angeles Police Department, as I was about to go to sleep, two reporters came to my apartment. The reporters expressed the desire to do some- thing to help save the life of Patty Hearst. To my total disbelief, the two reporters actually asked if I knew Patty Hearst's whereabouts, or if I could help make contact with her. I was surprised, and at first I viewed this midnight appeal as part of some bizarre fantasy. Once I had overcome my initial disbelief, however, I began to realize that this seemingly unbelievable request did not occur within a va- cuum. This was no isolated incident. Rather, it was the direct product of the hysterical sensa- tionalism now .surrounding the entire "saga of Patty Hearst and the SLA" - an hysteria which easily could come to be directed at anyone who has been active in what the police or the press consider to be "the left." This wave of hysteria has swept through and around us all. The most dramatic and horrify- ing example of just what this hysteria can pro- duce was seen live on coast-to-coast, prime-time TV last Friday evening. A tactical police assault team of over 500 armed personnel employed a strategy which led to what the police have called a "war." As "warfare" the police justified the horrible and excessive tactics of shooting or burn- ing to death their "enemy." POLICE AGENCY officials argue that they had no choice; that they were faced with armed and dangerous terrorists; that they did in fact call upon the suspects to surrender; and that before opening weapons' fire they used tear gas. It was only after receiving a great blast of gun- fire, the police tell us, that they returned the gunfire. In short - as the police tell it - war- fare was the only realistic or reasonable alterna- tive. But was this really so - or had the police determined to stage a latter-day "public hang- ing?" Had the police decided to execute their enemies? Was there really no reasonable alterna- tive to warfare-or had the pjlice consciously de- termined that they would take no prisoners? As has been pointed out both by citizens groups and by area residents, a more humane and prov- en, practical alternative was in fact available. The alternative would simply have been to wait out the suspects - by clearing the area surround- ing the house, to protect the people of the neigh- borhood, and, perhaps, by calling in family and friends of the suspects to plead for their sur- render. If it took days, or even a week or more, for that matter, any possbile alternative would have been preferable to inflicting what was, in the words of Emily Harris's father, a "horrible and useless death." IN THE lurid spectacle of the Friday Evening War, there seems to be a double message. To the potential opponents of the status quo the police seem to be saying, 'If we don't like what you're doing, we'll kill you." But to the broader com- munity another message is given; the police are strong, and able to protect the ordinary, law- abiding citizen from the irrational violence of criminal terrorists. In short, "Stick with us and we'll take care of you." But this second message "to protect and serve" is stranglely contradicted. The anti-SLA hysteria did not begin with the shooting of Black school superintendent Faster- arguably an ordinary, law-abiding citizen. The hysteria began with the political kidnapping of the daughter of one of the wealthiest families. Ordinary citizens are unlikely ever to be the victims of a political kidnapping; and a 500- member police assault force has never before been called out against the alleged murderers of a Black man. Without in anyway endorsing the actions of the SLA, we must face squarely that the police can be counted on "to protect and to serve" only the wealthy and powerful. Un- fortunately, this conclusion is strengthened by the location of the Friday Evening War in a poor community of Black citizens. We must ask ourselves: Would the police have endangered lives and destroyed property so recklessly if the SLA suspects had been caught hiding in the wealthy, white suburbs of Beverly Hills or Bel Air? IN THEIR total rejection of reason and mod- eration, in choosing brutal and excessive meth- ods, the police have gone far beyond their proper functions as protectors and servants. They have taken on the roles of judge, jury and execution- er. But is this not the very essence of a police state? Now the atmosphere and the tactics of police- state control do not simply materialize overnight, or by accident. In our specific, American situa- tion the possibility of a police state has been created by conscious policies culminating in the expenditures of vast sums of money by the Nixon administration in the training of local law enforcement officers in the warfare tactics of armed assault. The political hysteria behind the creation of such police machinery as the LA. "Special Weapons And Tactical Squad" (which spearheaded the Friday Evening War) is the same sort of political hysteria which led to John Mitchell's "Red Squad", to Richard Nixon's "Plumbers Unit," and, in -general, to what every American has come to know as the "Water- gate." ONCE THE potential for a police state exists, once the police machinery has been created and is poised for action - then as we all have seen in the Watergate affair, few explicit orders regarding methods ever need to be given. All that is necessary is simply to unleash these special police forces, and to promote a general atmosphere which sanctions their special activi- ties. Given the mere existence, in every major city, of these highly developed, well funded, para-military police machines, the overall atmos- phere epitomized by "Watergate" has served as that official sanction - a green light for these brutal machines to do exactly what they were created to do: to restrict, to saboage, to intimi- date, and, bluntly, to destroy all of us who are working for needed and meaningful social change. We have seen on the tube, larger than life, a bit of 1984. For as must be apparent we now have here in the United States all the elements of a veritable, nationwide police state. To date they have been largely used only against those called "the left" or "radicals." But as is shown in the contemporary development of police states in countries such as Greece and Brazil, and his- torically, as in Nazi Germany, it always begins with the "radicals" - but soon it steamrolls, it gets out of control - soon it comes to include any and all who come into disfavor in the eyes of the establishment order. NOW WHO ARE those-seen as the malcontents in modern America? The clearest indication as to where, ultimately, this all could end can be found in Richard Nixon's published list of political en- emies. Only very few on that list could be con- sidered' radicals. The great majority of those enemies on Nixon's published list are peace ad- vocates, civil rights leaders, noted journalists, Democrats of all political shades, and even dissi- dent Republicans. For American citizens to accept the Friday Evening War as a legitimate and reasonable me- thod of law enforcement is far us to condone and to promote the development of a police state in America. Mario Savio is best known for his contribu- tion to the Free Speech Atonement at Berkeley. lie is presently a free-lance writer.