By DAVID FELLINGHAM
By the time the Salt Lake S.W.A.T. (Special Weapons and Tactics) team arrived, the Trolley Square gunman was dead.
But it was a S.W.A.T. tactic, titled 'active shooter situation,' which police officers used to end the killing spree.
The S.W.A.T. team had done its job.
In the 1966 Texas Tower Shooting, when a man shot students from the top of the Texas University bell tower for 96 minutes, police realized that would be outgunned if they encountered a heavily armed criminal, and there would be little they could do to stop them.
In the wake of violent criminal acts, S.W.A.T. was born. It is a police unit that uses military-type weapons and tactics. These units have earned both praise and criticism from the public.
'When S.W.A.T. is called, it is because something has gone bad. We are there to de-escalate the situation,' said Lt. Wally Perschon, a member of the Utah County Sheriff S.W.A.T. team.
S.W.A.T. units are now commonplace among police departments. These units are used to serve high risk warrants, end situations with barricaded subjects either intending to hurt themselves or others, riot control and diplomatic or prisoner protection.
Proponents of S.W.A.T. are glad that police have the resources to deal with extremely volatile situations that normal police training does not prepare for.
Others say that S.W.A.T. is being used too much and does more damage than good.
'The most dangerous aspect of police militarization isn't the machine guns: it's the change in police attitudes,' said Dave Kopel, research director at the Independence Institute, and also an advocate for the disbandment of S.W.A.T.
Kopel's fear is that S.W.A.T. teams change police attitudes from 'peace officers' to a mindset that the use of force is required.
Peter Kraska, professor of criminal justice at Eastern Kentucky University, has estimated that the use of S.W.A.T. teams has soared over 40,000 callouts in the United States per year, much more than he feels are needed.
'The bulk of deployments that paramilitary units engage in today are for the execution of no-knock warrants,' Kraska explained. 'In both large and small departments, police paramilitary units routinely carry out dangerous contraband raids on people's private residences, often in predawn hours, for purposes of conducting a crude form of investigation into drug and gun law violations.'
Both Kraska and Kopel feel S.W.A.T. is used too heavily to do routine police work that could be done by police officers and the police use S.W.A.T. when no force is needed.
It is a view that Sgt. Todd Grossgebauer of the Metro S.W.A.T. unit strongly disagreed with.
'The last thing we want to do is use force,' said Grossgebauer, whose unit includes officers from Orem, BYU and Provo police departments.
Grossgebauer says the Metro S.W.A.T. team is only used when the police feel they have no other choice to ensure the safety of the officers and the criminals. Most of the time when S.W.A.T. arrives at the scene the show of force is enough to make most criminals give up, he said.
Although there are no exact numbers available, the Metro S.W.A.T. team is only used a few dozen times per year and has had no operational problems in over five years.
Mike Hargraves, from Saratoga Springs, was formerly a member of the Utah State S.W.A.T. team. He said he feels S.W.A.T. teams are vital to the safety of police and the public.
'If anyone is ignorant enough to think that police can handle everything, they are wrong,' Hargraves said.
Hargraves cited an incident in 1997 where two robbers in Los Angeles with automatic weapons and body armor and high on drugs fired over 500 rounds at police. The robbers wounded 16 officers before being neutralized.
Hargraves said he is glad police have the option to use S.W.A.T. as a means to end a high risk, life-threatening situation.
'Now it's becoming more and more possible for S.W.A.T. teams to go into bad situations and not take lives,' Hargraves said.
In the early 1990s with the spur of school shootings police, realized S.W.A.T. is not a fast response unit able to beat officers to the scene. S.W.A.T. teams across the country started training officers on the active shooter situation that saved lives right here in Utah.
The night of February 12 changed lives forever as an 18-year-old gunman walked into Trolley Square and started shooting, killing five and wounding others. But with the training handed down from S.W.A.T. to regular police officers, a killing spree was ended quickly.