Sheepdog Tip of the Day, During Combat tip 98
In a hostage situation, a fire hose can knock the criminal and the hostage off their feet with nobody getting hurt. The fire hose can disrupt the bomb. It can set off the trip-wire and put out the fire the bomb could start. Your friends in the fire department can help, especially if you coordinate with them ahead of time.
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, The Bullet Proof Mind seminar (paraphrased)
Feedback from a fellow sheepdog (Chuck Van Meter):
Most squad cars carry some chemical weapons in their trunk additionally SWAT and ERU teams bring the full repertoire of grenades for their disposal.
1. OC/CS grenades
2. Smoke grenades
3. Flash Bang grenades
4. Stingball grenades
Gas projectors such as S&W 37mm are valuable tools in projecting chemical weapons and denying operating areas to rioters.
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman:
Great input. Others may disagree with you, but we should consider all options. Many police cars do not have all the goodies you mention in their trunk (although they should!) and you make an excellent point about the fire-hose attached to a standpipe.
But the hose attached to a fire truck or a fire hydrant is a completely different critter. In one incident, a SWAT team commander told me he was faced with a hostage situation where a man had soaked his trailer-home, wife and kids in kerosene, and was at the front door holding them hostage with a gun and a lighter. The SWAT commander used the fire hose from a fire truck and, "Blew the guy out the back side of his trailer-home!" He had the firefighters operating the hose covered by cops with shields. He said the only problem was the fire guys didn't want to turn the hose up to full power, so he walked over to the fire engine and cranked it up to full power himself. No one died that day because of this innovative tactical commander
Again, you make a great point, every situation is different, and we must consider all options available. But the point here is to keep the fire hose in mind as a great potential resource.
Stay staunch!
Dave
Christopher Brennan (firefighting author and trainer):
A hoseline pumped from a fire engine has the ability to knock someone around like a rag doll. Also, fire departments pretty much have legal authority to refuse to use fire hoses on demonstrators and deny the police the right to do so ever since the freedom marches in the 1960's. We might do it to protect ourselves, but we are way more likely to just leave the area.
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