While reading another article on the Lima (OHIO) SWAT raid where they shot a 1 year old and his mother, I came across a link to the Lima SWAT web page.  On their page you are greeted with this animated GIF:



While looking at this, my 4 year old walks up and says: "He's a bad guy".  I asked her what made her think he is a bad guy. Her reply was, "because he wears a mask and shoots right at us."  This looks real professional.

So then I scrolled on down and they were kind enough to provide a team photo:



They all wear super secret ninja masks.  Why do they feel the need to dress up like a criminal?  Why post a team photo at all if they needed to protect their identity?  Maybe because they look cool or something. With their silly masks they look like they probably all high-five each other in the locker room and say things like "fear the night" and change in and out of their "Sniper, reach out and touch someone" t-shirts. I bet there is at least one copy of Soldier of Fortune laying around too.

The website says that they also go to tactical schools for training. I wonder if any went to the Lon Horiuchi Sniper School.  [Horiuchi was the sniper that killed Vicki Weaver while she held her 10 month old baby and received a commendation.]

I'm not anti-cop. I'm not even anti-SWAT necessarily. A place like Los Angeles that has a SWAT team that trains together constantly is one thing. These little departments that collect various and sundry duty officers and give them a SWAT suit and train them every 4-6 weeks for an hour or two is something else.  Why do they need to wear masks?  I bet they even have silenced weapons. Why does a police officer need a silencer?  Wouldn't samurai swords and nun-chucks match the ninja mask better anyway?