Swat Team: Police Special Weapons and Tactics

I brought this book along on the day I recently spent with the Ventura PD SWAT team. When I got the book out & showed it to the guys on the team, they were much amused to find that one of the teams profiled was the Modesto team, whom they had just beaten in the '99 California SWAT team championships, by two places. The Ventura team came in third overall out of 26 teams. All the guys who looked at the book thought the info was well-presented & pretty accurate. As a civilian, I was very much impressed with Halberstadt's writing style, the quality of the photos & the amount of detail given on just how teams operate. For someone who wants to understand how a SWAT team works, this is the book to buy.Only recommendation for the second edition is that Hans profile the Ventura team-a great bunch of guys & very professional!!

I'm not a police officer, or even a police buff, but I bought this book because after playing Sierra's "Police Quest: SWAT 2" PC game I wanted to find out more about these extrodinary peace officers... and this book has it all. A quality narrative with plenty of excellent photographs to suppliment the text, I highly recommend the book for anyone who wants to gain a renewed respect for the special weapons and tactics police officers who may dress like space-age storm troopers, but whose mission is primarily to save lives.

Once again, Hans Halberstadt proves why he is an American master of photo journalism with an honest, hard-hitting and beautifully illustrated title. As someone who has been on the line of officers awaiting to burst through a perp's door, few books afford the enthusiast and the SWAT team commander as insightful a profile as does this book. Add it to your collection at once!

Captures all the action, the personalities, the weapons, the tactics ... everything you wanted to know about SWAT but were afraid to ask. Not only that, the book features some of the best SWAT teams in the country, and was done under the supervision of a Ph. D. criminologist/street cop/trainer. With the author's notoriously amusing and dramatic flare for words, along with his legendary eye for a good shot, this is clearly the book to buy for anybody interested in SpecOps in law enforcement! Hans Halberstadt (yeah, okay, so it IS my book ... why should that make me biased?)