Opinion: South Pasadena police add armor to their fleet

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As a South Pasadena resident, I have few complaints about my city’s police. I wish they issued more speeding tickets on my street, but that’s a minor gripe. Nevertheless, the news that the 35-officer South Pas P.D. has acquired an armored vehicle for the sake of conducting SWAT operations is more than a little unnerving.

A diverse and neighborly middle-class bedroom community, South Pasadena (2010 population: 25,619) has relied on the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to handle its infrequent need for ‘tactical operations.’ By infrequent, I mean not having summoned the sheriff’s SWAT team for more than six years. But Police Chief Joe Payne told The Times’ Adolfo Flores that local cops are having to depend increasingly on their own personnel to handle SWAT situations, rather than counting on sheriff’s deputies.

Then there’s the issue of who pays if something should go horribly wrong. ‘If the Sheriff’s Department takes over, they also assume command of operations, which can be problematic because we’re still responsible and liable,’ Payne told Flores.

That’s why the South Pasadena Police Department has sent four of its officers to SWAT training, with four more due to receive it soon. These officers will join counterparts from Arcadia, Monrovia and San Marino in the San Gabriel Valley Foothills Special Enforcement Team.

Payne conceded that it doesn’t make sense for every small town to have a SWAT team. But why does it make sense for small towns to create regional SWAT teams when the county provides one?

I think of SWAT officers in the same way as surgeons: The more they put their training to practice, the better the results. Increasing the number of agencies with SWAT teams would have the opposite effect, reducing every team’s experience in the field. If you’re worried about things going awry, wouldn’t you rather have officers who’ve faced complex and volatile situations many times before?

Having a team nearby could yield better response times, and that might make a difference in the kind of firefight found in Hollywood’s version of reality. But is that the most likely use of SWAT teams?

It says something that South Pasadena bought its new ‘Peacekeeper’ armored vehicle for $1 from the Burbank police, who never used it. Not that Burbank is abandoning its SWAT team -- it used a federal grant to buy a beefy new armored vehicle.

What do you think? Take our wildly unscientific poll, leave a comment or do both!

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