Death in a Special Family

What was this new unit's first major operation?
The visit to Los Angeles by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967 was the first major assignment. But in terms of notoriety, what brought our team to the forefront was the shootout with Black Panthers on Dec. 8, 1969. Three SWAT agents were shot and wounded during the carrying out of search warrants at the Panther headquarters. The warrants had to do with weapons and explosive chargers. One of those SWAT officers who was wounded is a volunteer now here at the museum.

Early on, the Los Angeles SWAT team was considered a "ragtag outfit" that used guerrilla warfare and military tactics and was feared, yes?
Well, it's tough to speak to public perception when you work with these guys. But from a professional standpoint, these are people we have always called on when the day-to-day officer is in trouble. I can tell you that the folks that work in the SWAT unit consider themselves lifesavers. There are copious instances when the average officer would have been under fire and not be able to respond in any other way. SWAT officers have things at their disposal to neutralize a suspect. And the technologies continue to evolve. They are more capable of saving lives than they were 40 years ago.

Los Angeles was the first city to have such a unit, and other cities followed, right?
Yes. LAPD is the pioneer in forming a special team of officers, which of course has grown and evolved into a multifaceted operations tool. Other departments around the country and the world followed. Some used the name SWAT, while others came up with different names.

The Symbionese Liberation Army incident in 1974, too, got a lot of attention, and the SWAT team again was criticized, yes?
I'm actually building an exhibit in the museum on that very incident. It happened in May of 1974, when six members of the SLA holed up in a residence on 54th street in South L.A. and needed to be brought to justice for recent crimes, including the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the murder of Oakland school superintendent Marcus Foster, and more recently the robbery of Mel's Sporting Goods in Los Angeles. SWAT and FBI traced them to 1866 E. 54th Street. They were bullhorned 19 times the request to surrender. Then our SWAT team was met with gunfire from within the house. It was a lengthy and televised exchange. The house ultimately burned, and the remains of six people were later discovered. The belief was that the tear gas ignited the fire. The tear gas canisters then burned at a high temperature. Today the tear gas grenades burn at much lower rate.

What was the fallout of that incident for the department and for SWAT?
When six people lose their lives, even when those six are hardened criminals, it is a bad day all around. But the department, at the behest of mayor, did a lengthy investigation and determined that the situation was handled as best we could given the circumstances. The officers were being shot at, after making repeated requests for the suspects to surrender.

One of the most dramatic police situations in recent history occurred in North Hollywood in 1997 with the shootout with bank robbers, which was shown on live TV in Los Angeles. How did SWAT officers get involved?
It occurred on Feb. 28, 1997, after a robbery of a Bank of America in North Hollywood. It was a protracted, 44-minute gunfight, but the officers engaged in the fight were outgunned by the bank robbers, who had machine guns. The police had handguns and pump shotguns. Three SWAT officers—Steve Gomez, Don Anderson, and Rick Massa—arrived and engaged with the surviving suspect. It was captured on tape. There were wounded officers, and there was no tried-and-true method of taking these suspects into custody.