Geez, the SWAT tema got really, really lucky this time. Glad this dude killed himself.
I wonder what the heck the SWAT team planned on doing otherwise? How in the hell would you get one of these crazy, end of the world survivalists out of a bunker? Have you seen that tv show on cable? Some of those guys are building bunkers with concrete over a foot thick. Steel doors, air filtration. One guy even had a well inside his bunker. Other people have water tanks in the ground. They have a years supply of food rations.
I don’t think the cops could ask the Air Force to drop a bunker buster bomb like we used in Iraq. Bad publicity and messy.
It would cost millions to camp out there with enough men 24/7 and wait the guy out. That guy might not come out for a year or more.
I don’t know what you do. Your example isn’t even the worst one by far. The worst was the raid of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX in 1993 that resulted in the deaths of 4 ATF agents followed by a 51 day standoff and then the attack and burning of the compound resulting in 76 more deaths. As if that wasn’t bad enough, that mishandled government raid led directly to Timothy McVeigh and others bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City resulting in 168 more deaths including 19 young children.
I wish there was a good solution to that scenario but there isn’t and a heavy-handed government approach can lead to even more very bad consequences. See also Ruby Ridge.
Robots, listening devices, tear gas*, flashbangs, ballistic shields, breaching explosives, training, a high number of well trained officers and having time on your side are of great help.
If he has a gas mask, which, let’s face it, a survivalist would, you can play the game of “let’s see if you run out of filters before we run out of tear gas”.
That’s what people like to think. However, a suicidal/homicidal person in a well-stocked location with some knowledge is a very dangerous thing legally, logistically, and morally. It hasn’t proven to be wise at all to declare war on such a person who just needs to be arrested and isn’t posing an immediate threat to anyone.
It is certainly dangerous to go after them. However, even the loss of a few officers may be worth it. The reason being that if going into your bunker makes the cops give up on arresting you until you come out, that gives certain people a big incentive to build themselves bunkers (which can have well hidden escape routes) as a way to avoid being arrested. As much as I like the idea of a multitude of villain lairs being built, that seems worse than losing a few officers to show would-be bunkered up criminals that you can run but you can’t hide.
Consider the human lives which would be put at risk if the police established the policy that when a criminal bunkers up, the police will not go after them. It’s worth it in the same sense that giving nothing substantial to hostage takers is worth it, even to save some hostages; if you don’t make that sacrifice, you create a moral hazard which can result in more people dying.
When you recruit, prepare and deploy people to often put themselves in a situation where death is a significant risk, you can expect some of them to die. If you do it anyway, you accept to sacrifice them. Even if it is not your intention for them to die, it is a foreseable consequence of your actions. If you don’t think it’s ever worth it to send people to their deaths to attain an objective, you should propose that we abolish the police, the military and any rescue service that puts the rescuers at significant risk of death.
When you say “expedience”, do you mean convenience?
If so, did you not read what I wrote? If it were merely expedience (in the sense of convenience), it wouldn’t be worth it to send people to their death. The fact that you think I believe it’s worth sending people to their death for the sake of expedience (in the sense of convenience) shows you haven’t actually read what I wrote.
If you mean “expedience” in the sense of “appropriate to a purpose”, then yes. And that purpose is to ultimately save more lives than are lost.
Just to get this straight, you don’t see any moral hazard in establishing a policy that tells criminals that if they bunker up, the police won’t go after them?
