In the United States, a SWAT team is a generic term for a police tactical unit.
S.W.A.T. is a 2003 American action crime thriller film directed by Clark Johnson and written by David Ayer and David McKenna, with the story credited to Ron Mita and Jim McClain. Produced by Neal H. Moritz, it is based on the 1975 television series of the same name and stars Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell, Michelle Rodriguez, LL Cool J, Josh Charles, Jeremy Renner, Brian Van Holt and Olivier Martinez. The plot follows Hondo (Jackson) and his SWAT team as they are tasked to escort an imprisoned drug kingpin/international fugitive to prison after he offers a $100 million reward to anyone who can break him out of police custody.
The North Hollywood shootout, also known as the Battle of North Hollywood, was a confrontation between two heavily armed and armored bank robbers, Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu, and police officers in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles on February 28, 1997. Both robbers were killed, twelve police officers and eight civilians were injured, and numerous vehicles and other property were damaged or destroyed by the nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition fired by the robbers and police.
A shootout, also called a firefight, gunfight, or gun battle, is an armed confrontation entailing firearms between armed parties using guns, always entailing intense disagreement(s) between the fighting parties. The term can be used to describe any such fight, though it is typically used in a non-military context or to describe combat situations primarily using firearms.
The Emergency Task Force (ETF) is the police tactical unit of the Toronto Police Service. Created in 1965, it is mandated to deal with high-risk situations like hostage-taking, emotionally disturbed persons, high-risk arrests, warrant service, protection details, and crowd control. The Emergency Task Force is also responsible for responding to any terrorist incidents that occur throughout the City of Toronto.
The Emergency Response Unit (ERU) is the police tactical unit of the Garda Síochána, Ireland's national police and security service. The unit was a section of the forces' Special Detective Unit (SDU), under the Crime and Security Branch (CSB) until 2017, when the Special Tactics and Operational Command was created to take over its operational duties alongside Armed Support Units.
The 300 million yen robbery, also known as the 300 million yen affair or 300 million yen incident, was an armed robbery that took place in Tokyo, Japan, on December 10, 1968. A man posing as a police officer on a motorcycle stopped bank employees transferring money and stole 294 million yen. It is the single largest heist in Japanese history to date, and remains unsolved.
44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out is a 2003 American crime action docudrama television film directed by Yves Simoneau and written by Tim Metcalfe. The film stars Michael Madsen, Ron Livingston, Mario Van Peebles, Andrew Bryniarski, and Oleg Taktarov. It is a semi-fictional dramatization of the 1997 North Hollywood shootout, and follows the perspectives of bank robbers Larry Eugene Phillips Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu, as well as various Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers involved in the shootout.
The Norco shootout was an armed confrontation between five heavily armed bank robbers and deputies of the Riverside County and San Bernardino County sheriffs' departments in Norco, California, United States, on May 9, 1980. Two of the five perpetrators and a sheriff's deputy were killed; eight other law enforcement officers, a civilian, and two other perpetrators were wounded; and massive amounts of gunfire damaged at least 30 police cars, a police helicopter, and numerous nearby homes and businesses.
The Gladbeck hostage crisis or Gladbeck hostage drama was a bank robbery and hostage-taking that took place in northwestern West Germany from 16 to 18 August 1988. Two men with prior criminal records – Hans-Jürgen Rösner and Dieter Degowski – robbed a branch of the Deutsche Bank in Gladbeck, North Rhine-Westphalia, taking two employees as hostages. During their flight, they were joined by Rösner's girlfriend Marion Löblich, with whom they hijacked a public transport bus in Bremen. With twenty-seven hostages aboard, they drove towards the Netherlands, where all but two hostages were released, and the bus was exchanged for a getaway car. The hostage-taking was finally ended when the police rammed the getaway car on the A3 motorway near Bad Honnef, North Rhine-Westphalia.
The Newhall incident, also called the Newhall massacre, was a shootout on April 5–6, 1970, in Valencia, California, between two heavily armed criminals and four officers of the California Highway Patrol (CHP). In less than five minutes, the four CHP officers were killed and another man was pistol-whipped in what was at the time the deadliest day in California law enforcement history.
Metropolitan Division, commonly referred to as Metro Division or just Metro, is an elite division of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) under its Special Operations Group. Metropolitan Division is responsible for managing the LAPD's specialized crime suppression, K-9, mounted, and SWAT units, named "platoons".
Phillip La Force Hutchinson was an American bank robber and escaped convict, known for his 1988 rampage in Denver, Colorado, in which he robbed a bank, murdered a police officer, and held a man hostage. He was pursued by police and a news helicopter that filmed his getaway in one of the first recorded police chases. Hutchinson was eventually stopped when the pilot of the news helicopter blocked his vehicle; Hutchinson was then shot dead by police when they surrounded him. A 1991 television film, The Chase, was based on his crime spree.
The Overland Park Police Department is a local police department in Kansas and is located in Johnson County, Kansas. The department was known as Mission Township Police Department prior to 1960.
On December 5, 2019, a police pursuit of jewelry store robbers in Miramar, Florida, United States, culminated in a shootout, killing the perpetrators, the kidnapped driver of a UPS multi-stop truck, and a bystander. The crime scene was described as "very complicated" by the FBI special agent in charge. The president of Miami-Dade's police union claimed that at least eleven officers opened fire on the UPS truck in response to the robbers' firing first.
On June 28, 2022, a shootout occurred between two gunmen and responding police officers following a robbery of a Bank of Montreal branch in Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. Both gunmen, later identified as twin brothers Mathew and Isaac Auchterlonie, were killed by police, while six officers were injured, three of them severely.
Joseph "Joe Joe" Rideau and Christopher "Chris" Rideau, were well known criminals from New Orleans, Louisiana. Authorities said the brothers terrorized the streets of New Orleans and built a reputation as brazen gangsters. For years the duo was implicated in a host of crimes, but they were rarely convicted because of reluctant witnesses and missing evidence that doomed cases. In 2001 the brother's crime sprees would come to an end after a violent standoff in which the elder brother Joseph was killed. The wild incident made national headlines in the media. Christopher was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in the incident and was released from prison in 2010 with time off for good behavior. In 2011, he was viciously gunned down in New Orleans.
On September 27, 2022, 15-year-old Savannah Graziano and her 45-year-old father Anthony were shot and killed by deputies from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department during a shootout in Hesperia, California. A day prior, Anthony Graziano had killed his estranged wife, Savannah's mother. Video of the shooting showed deputies shot and killed Savannah, who was unarmed, as she followed a deputy's instructions to move towards him. Police claimed she was wearing body-armor at the time of the shootout, though this is unclear in video of the incident.
