mister3d doesn’t miss a trick. Scanning the horrific story 8 Found Dead, Including 5 Children, After Stand Off in Harris County, Texas at nbcnews.com, the TTAG reader caught this little gem: “[Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas] Gilliland said officers were called to the house in Harris County just after 9 p.m. Saturday, and upon arrival discovered that the man inside had an outstanding warrant for the aggravated assault of a family member. He said the High Risk Operations Unit was then called in to run the arrest, but officers decided to move in after seeing the body of a child through a window.” The what? Let’s have a look [via chron.com] . . .

[Sheriff Adrian] Garcia said in a released statement Monday [January 25, 2010]: “I can’t help bring my agency into the 21st century without first adopting 20th century crime-fighting techniques, such as a high-risk tactical unit that can be used to defend the 1.4 million people who rely on us to answer their emergency calls.”

Harris County Sheriff's Office High Risk Operations Unit (courtesy Facebook)

Doguim emphasized that Harris County no longer should just rely on other agencies and should, in fact, be ready to help its law enforcement brethren respond to large-scale disasters — a Columbine-style high school shooting, a series of simultaneous terrorist attacks such as the ones in Mumbai in 2008, or riots. He also suggested that as the agency responsible for security at the Port of Houston, the sheriff’s office needs to have a team in place to respond to a terrorist attack.

“If, God forbid, there are multiple incidents around the city or the country, we too have to be able to step up to the law enforcement table,” Doguim said.

The sheriff’s departments of Travis, Bexar and Tarrant counties have SWAT teams. Travis County has two, one for the jails and one for the streets. Tarrant County’s sheriff has direct jurisdiction over only about 40,000 people, said the department’s executive administrator, Terry Grisham.

And so Garcia got his wish [above]. We so missed this one. As we learned recently, SWAT originally stood for Special Weapons and Attack Team. LA Chief Gates made it politically correct by modifying the name to Special Weapons and Tactics. And six years ago (or more) some bright spark rechristened SWAT as HROU (High Risk Operations Unit).

The even more PC nomenclature didn’t take – at least far as this gun blogger has seen. Until now. As the headline posits, I wonder if gun control – sorry, “gun safety” advocates will buy in, what with the cops using “assault rifles” and all. Hey! Maybe it’s time to rename them! How does “modern sporting rifles” grab you?

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55 COMMENTS

  1. “SWAT originally stood for Special Weapons and Attack Team.”

    It’s ‘Special Weapons and Tactics’.

  2. In the late 70’s a local county sheriffs group was called the Fast Action Response Team. F.A.R.T. No joke.

  3. Of course they had to rename it. They no longer used “special weapons” as most LEOs are now outfited with the same equipment.

    • Man, that’s exactly what I was thinking. If they start referring to these guys as “Hero Units” I’m going to puke.

      • I don’t pay too much attention to the names they give themselves.

        I just call them “death squads”.

      • “High Risk Operations Unit”

        High
        Efficacy
        Response
        Operations

        There, now it -literally- spells HERO. Orwell would be .. proud?

  5. As an engineer we never pose with our calculators (or old school slide rules), so why…never mind.

  6. To be fair, the Sheriff’s Dept has responsibility for security of a good portion of the Houston Ship Channel. Much of the funding for the SWAT/HRO team comes for that purpose. Roughly 40 percent of the nations refining and more than half of other petro-chem production happens in that area. You could do some significant damage if you knew what you were doing down there. That is one area I want well trained and equipped response.

  7. “High Risk Tactical Unit” huh. Wearing body armor and riding in military armored vehicles, so I’m guessing that it’s not the LEO’s that are at risk.

  9. I forget what Lansing, MI’s S.T.A.R.T. is supposed to stand for.
    I also forget who uses the acronym R.E.A.C.T.
    But I do remember that the F.B.I. calls theirs H.R.T. for Hostage Roasting Team and pronounces it “hurt”.

    • That sounds super ninja and mysterious….Is that the county or the city? Or is that for both? I know St. Louis County Police and the City Police share some resources.

  12. Regardless of what they call them, this is actually a great example of a good deployment. Barricaded suspect, possible hostage situation. This is what these guys are supposed to be doing, not kicking in your door at 2AM because they spend most of their time serving warrants and they got the wrong address.

  13. Haha my old town’s police department is a great agency, really, over half of the guys are prior service with a large number still in the reserves and/or with some serious experience. Anyways the next town over has a slightly larger population with more metro areas so they have a big SWAT team, my town shares the range and certain jurisdiction and equipment logistics with the adjacent town but they call it the EST or Emergency Situation Team. I guess everyone has to be unique 😀 I remember being a part of their training at a local school where they used simunitions, lets just say I hope they call the county in if something real bad happens 😛 Of course that was a couple of years ago so maybe they have gotten better.

  16. So now the headlines will have to be changed to “HROU Shoots Innocent Man’s Dog At Wrong Address”?

  18. The term SWAT just makes them another alphabet gang on my list. Hide your dogs, hide your wife, and all that. Any acronym or word besides police will be described as anything but protectors.

  19. Hell, Angelina County SO has a SWAT team, I’m kind of staggered that Harris County SO didn’t have one. Burleson, Texas (a wide spot in the road off IH 35–and I do mean “off”) got a SWAT team some time back, made the news because they put a female officer on it. The Social Security Admin and the EPA have SWAT teams. How did the Harris County SO last so long without one? BTW, RF, those cops don’t carry “assault weapons”, they carry “patrol rifles” or “personal defense weapons”, no? It’s only when you or I carry one that it becomes an assault weapon.

  20. Fun with euphemisms and cutesy acronyms aside, the fact remains that this unconscionable horror of a human being was free to walk the streets.

    He has a staggering long criminal record, including felonies, misdemeanors, domestic violence orders, and violent attacks on intimate partners, going back decades.

    Key take aways:

    The police cannot save everyone.

    Laws cannot decisively prevent determined killers, known violent offenders and prohibited possessors from obtaining or retaining firearms.

    You are your own first line of defense, especially you ladies, in terms of vetting whom you allow into your lives.

    Perimeter defense is vital. This woman changed all the door locks, but someone left a window unlocked, allowing the killer an entry point.

    A self defense firearm must be part of your personal security plan, especially if you’re already being targeted by a known violent offender.

    The tuition paid for these lessons was extremely high this weekend. Don’t waste the education.

    • Key take aways:

      Don’t have boyfriends, spouses, or baby-daddies with twenty years worth of felonies and run-ins with the law!

      WTH is wrong with some women?

      • Probably they grew up in the sort of economic conditions the GOP loves to foster and the Dems love to exploit: extreme poverty. Thus they’re accustomed to not being able to have good things and grabbing at whatever is available.

          • They love low wages the lower the better. They love laws that target the poor, especially with fines.

            Yes, the GOP loves to foster poverty. It’s ridiculous, since it drives people to vote Democrat, but they do.

              • Wow — like many GOP supporters, you apparently don’t live in the real world. Fines for everything from working on your car while it’s parked on the street to having an RV more than five years old parked where it’s visible to the public…. fines that will get your thrown in jail if you miss a payment, then court costs, and jail costs, and (if they can afford it) bail costs, and on and on. Recently here we got codes establishing fines if your dog’s leash isn’t the right length, or the collar isn’t deemed strong enough — more fines targeting those the people who pass the rules know can’t afford to pay.

        • Fostering school choice via vouchers so minorities can escape the clutches of failing schools and obtain a real education?

          Imposing lifetime limits on welfare so families can break the cycle of dependency?

          Opposing increases in the minimum wage, which only serves to price minorities with no education and no experience out of the job market where they could otherwise acquire both and increase their earnings?

          These are major Republican policies empowerering minorities and uplifting them from poverty. You have it all wrong, my friend. Well, you were right about Democrats exploiting perpetually impoverished minorities.

      • Women’s brains are wired differently than ours (mens). Like us, a lot of it has to do with how they are raised…..

  21. Few decades ago, we (USAF SP) called it EST (Emergency Services Team). But, of course, we are talking the military, so our EST was far more “subdued” (less armed) than our other response options, if you know what I mean. As you can imagine, we had a concept termed “the minimum force necessary to accomplish the task”, so I can count the number of times the EST team had been deployed on 1 hand during a 7-year period.

    • I’ve seen that abbreviated MFN. Interestingly, it’s also, according to my engineer siblings and the engineer spouses, an engineering term! On top of that, a contractor I worked with briefly on demolitions (not the kind that go “Boom!”) used it.

      It’s an elegant concept. Cops should be held to it or be liable to be sued — personally.

  22. Here’s more apt one: NSOWGT

    Nazi Stahlhelm-donning Operator Wannabe Govt Terrorists!

    BUWAHAHAHAHA!!

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