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ELB wrote: Shopping malls and schools seem even liklier targets, but don't have SWAT teams. Yet. What I was really getting at is how many Fed Gov agencies have their own individual police forces. Having their own SWAT teams is even more interesting.

Shopping malls and schools don't have 150,000 acres, thousands of highly skilled scientific and technical employees and billions and billions of dollars worth of sensitive and sometimes irreplaceable equipment to protect.

Stupid wrote:Should he simply drive away, this tragedy would have never happened. He went back to get his gun and confronted the injured person just like Joe Horn did - well, not in his own yard of course.

I don't see any difference and cannot understand why this guy is called hero, but Joe is not.

Tragedy? The guy was not killed as he was wearing body armor. He was not injured until the SWAT oficer shot him. No one else was harmed. He stopped the guy from being on the street and potentially kept someone at his next robbery from getting shot.

The difference I see with Joe Horn is there are unanswered questions on the way the individuals were shot. Also the individuals were not armed with guns. He was pretty vocal and bolsterous prior to the shooting with 911, which weighs bad on the public eye. I am not saying Joe was wrong. I would have probably gone outside myself to try to at least get good descriptions. If they came toward me like he claims, then I might have done the same thing. We just need to hang loose and see if the evidence shows it was truly a righteous shoot and the Grand Jury no-bills him.

Xander wrote:

ELB wrote: Shopping malls and schools seem even liklier targets, but don't have SWAT teams. Yet. What I was really getting at is how many Fed Gov agencies have their own individual police forces. Having their own SWAT teams is even more interesting.

Shopping malls and schools don't have 150,000 acres, thousands of highly skilled scientific and technical employees and billions and billions of dollars worth of sensitive and sometimes irreplaceable equipment to protect.

Plus can imagine some nutcase trying to sneak in the place and threatening to blow up some of that "XYZ" fuel that they use on the space shuttle. How many miles of trees and houses would that flatten??? Mainly IMHO, most facilities that houses "highly radioactive materials" have a SWAT team like most Nuclear plants do. To blow away some nutcase that makes a bad decision and crosses the fence for the wrong reason.

Although this guy is in Florida and Joe Horn is in Texas they will likely receive the same treatment.
Joe Horn will go before the Grand Jury, smart money is betting on a no-Bill
This guy will most likely see a Grand Jury, will most likely get No-billed.
If someone wants to buy Quanell 10 a plane ticket maybe he will show up for the party also.
Why should Pasadena have a monopoly on the fun.

Xander wrote:

ELB wrote: Shopping malls and schools seem even liklier targets, but don't have SWAT teams. Yet. What I was really getting at is how many Fed Gov agencies have their own individual police forces. Having their own SWAT teams is even more interesting.

Shopping malls and schools don't have 150,000 acres, thousands of highly skilled scientific and technical employees and billions and billions of dollars worth of sensitive and sometimes irreplaceable equipment to protect.

Its about the press and visability. The World knew about the White house the Pentagon, and The world trade center, No one except Americans care about the mall of the Americas. DisneyWorld and Kenedy Space Center are World Wide landmarks. Al Qada would love to launch a shoulder fired missle at the shuttle. It's all about the press.

ELB wrote:Shopping malls and schools seem even liklier targets, but don't have SWAT teams. Yet. What I was really getting at is how many Fed Gov agencies have their own individual police forces. Having their own SWAT teams is even more interesting.

I probably am as skeptical about the overall situation as you are, but the fact remains that Kennedy Space Center is a tempting target. Only the U.S. and Russia launch manned space missions regularly, and the U.S. launches all of the missions that build and maintain the space station. For some kind of depraved fanatic, disabling that capability would be a temporary victory.

- Jim

seamusTX wrote:

ELB wrote:Shopping malls and schools seem even liklier targets, but don't have SWAT teams. Yet. What I was really getting at is how many Fed Gov agencies have their own individual police forces. Having their own SWAT teams is even more interesting.

I probably am as skeptical about the overall situation as you are, but the fact remains that Kennedy Space Center is a tempting target. Only the U.S. and Russia launch manned space missions regularly, and the U.S. launches all of the missions that build and maintain the space station. For some kind of depraved fanatic, disabling that capability would be a temporary victory.

- Jim

Actually, Russia has their supply ships that restock the station. They can also carry 3 astrounauts back and forth.

JEepers, I really didn't mean to divert the original thread topic, I was just interested to know (and still find myself amazed) at how many government agencies have their own police and security forces. I don't have an informed opinion about whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, but I am surprised that someone, for example FEMA, hasn't made a successful play to combine all the different federal agency security forces into a single Federal police force of some kind, citing cost savings through centralization and all that. That's the way the government works. Centralize all the decentralized functions, then a few years later, decentralize the centralized functions. Lather, rinse, repeat.I guess the individual agencies still have enough of their own clout to head that off for now.

As as far what would make a more visible, likely, terrorist target -- I agree that visibility and press is the object of a terror attack, which is why KSC with 150K acres and all those engineers would NOTmake a particularly worthy target. Yes, it would hurt our space efforts, but that is not the point, and the only ones who really care are in the government or are government contractors. NASA has extra security not because they are the most likely target, but because they have the budget to do it. So far, schools don't.

I am not saying that it NASA is immune to attack, but government targets (including government contractors) are just not that noteworthy to most people, whether Americans or not. In my life time we've had a major headquarters at Ramstein bombed, a couple hundred marines blown up in Beirut, a general officer and his wife kidnapped, embassies in Africa attacked, multiple diplomats and attaches killed in various countries, a USN warship darn near sunk, and I've probably left out a few. They all got a big play for a few days, maybe a few weeks, but it wasn't all that long before those attacks largely drifted out of public consciousness. Frankly, I think most people shrug when government folks get whacked, particularly military folks. Most people think it comes with the territory. If the 9-11 attack had been against the Pentagon only, we would hardly be discussing it now, and believe me, we did not go to war in Afghanistan because the Pentagon was attacked, or the some other D.C. building was targeted. You want real attention, you kill non-government related civilians. In large numbers if possible.

I think that's why bin Laden and his buddies started focusing on the 10-airliners at once thing, and the Twin Towers. Spain got a couple trains bombed, the Spaniards threw out their government and surrendered in Iraq. I am convinced that the only reason Tony Blair survived the London subway attacks is that he was so busy dismantling Great Britain from within, people who griped about the war still gave him pass. For all the press Al Quaida in Iraq got for attacking our guys, when they wanted to get the attention of the Iraqi and other Arab populations, they went after Iraqi civilians in big numbers. The fact that this has ultimately worked against them didn't figure into their original calculations.

No, you want to make a big splash in the US or anywhere in the West, and have people really pay attention, you launch a Beslan-type attack. Take over a mall, or a large public school (gun free except for maybe a couple school cops, of course), some place with lots of unarmed civilians, load the place up with explosives to keep the police at bay, then every day throw a few bodies out the front door. Sneak out some video of hostages begging for their lives, to be played on terrorist websites, and duly reported by our press. When governor or the president finally gets up the guts to order in the troops, blow the whole place up.

That we didn't react to the Towers being knocked down the way bin Laden anticipated doesn't change this. Heck, if something like that happened now, I am convinced a certain majority party would surrender immediately. If somone shot down a shuttle, I expect the most that would happen is the manned space program would go away, and most of the US would yawn.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program: Based on the sketchy reports so far, this guy who foiled the robber seems in much better legal position than Mr. Horn. Whether the guy was a SWAT cop, or Joe Blow, good on him.

elb

Xander wrote:

ELB wrote: Shopping malls and schools seem even liklier targets, but don't have SWAT teams. Yet. What I was really getting at is how many Fed Gov agencies have their own individual police forces. Having their own SWAT teams is even more interesting.

Shopping malls and schools don't have 150,000 acres, thousands of highly skilled scientific and technical employees and billions and billions of dollars worth of sensitive and sometimes irreplaceable equipment to protect.

That all depends on what school you're talking about. The University of Texas system has huge amounts of land. It has an operating budget of 10 billion dollars. I couldn't find a number for the value in assets the system has, but it certainly must be in the billions. It also has thousands of highly skilled scientific and technical employees. UT Austin certainly has sensitive and valuable equipment; it even operates a nuclear reactor here.

... at how many government agencies have their own police and security forces.

Just go to Washington, DC and you'll be stunned by the amount in that one location. A USSS Agent told me once that the amount of Federal and DC LEOs was unbelievable. Every government establishment had their own police force.

Just to name a few: The GSA, The Mint, The White House, Congress, Park Service, Consulates, The Armed Forces Retirement Home, Defense Department, State Department, Homeland Security, ICE, Border Patrol, The Pentagon, The Bureau of Printing and Engraving, George Washington University, Howard University, American University, Catholic University, Georgetown University, US Postal Service, etc. Even the FBI and the CIA have their own police force. This doesn't even count all the DC LEOs such as the Transit Police and Metro.

I was being sarcastic when calling this a 'tragedy.'

Keith B wrote: Tragedy? The guy was not killed as he was wearing body armor. He was not injured until the SWAT oficer shot him. No one else was harmed. He stopped the guy from being on the street and potentially kept someone at his next robbery from getting shot.

The difference I see with Joe Horn is there are unanswered questions on the way the individuals were shot. Also the individuals were not armed with guns. He was pretty vocal and bolsterous prior to the shooting with 911, which weighs bad on the public eye. I am not saying Joe was wrong. I would have probably gone outside myself to try to at least get good descriptions. If they came toward me like he claims, then I might have done the same thing. We just need to hang loose and see if the evidence shows it was truly a righteous shoot and the Grand Jury no-bills him.

Shopping malls and schools seem even liklier targets, but don't have SWAT teams. Yet.

Dallas ISD does, in fact, have it's very own SWAT team.