"Perhaps the most notable aspect of the deadly force findings is that SWAT officers rarely
discharge their firearms at human targets. We estimated that across the hundreds of team years
for which we had data that SWAT officers took suspects under fire in just 342 of the tens of
thousands of operations they undertook"
I don't think that most SWAT responses are actually saving lives with bullets. Also included in that paper is a table showing that most frequently, SWAT is used to serve warrants.
I’m glad that most SWAT incidents end without the team firing any rounds. To me, that’s a success case and a better outcome than if the metric showed “50% of the time, officers discharged their weapons”. It’s not a waste when their body armor goes untested on a call either.
If a warrant serving situation seems dangerous enough to use SWAT, I hope they use them and no rounds are fired. That’s a good warrant service, not a failure, in my book.
https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/223855.pdf
I don't think that most SWAT responses are actually saving lives with bullets. Also included in that paper is a table showing that most frequently, SWAT is used to serve warrants.