Wednesday, January 27, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
The Bunkhouse
Chronicle
Craig Rullman
Columnist
Apocalypse Never
The continuing occupa-
tion at the Malheur Refuge
has spurred thousands of
opinions and commentary
at a national level. There are
those who believe the FBI
should immediately rush in
and arrest everybody, those
who decry the government in
firm support of the Bundys,
and virtually every position
in between.
An awful lot of it is hot
air, emotional declarations
and condemnations, and wild
accusations that if the cir-
cumstances were different, or
the racial, religious, or politi-
cal component consisted of
this or that denomination, the
outcome would have long
since been decided.
Not so.
Tactical plans are created
wholly without consider-
ations of color or creed. They
are, however, created after
very careful assessments of
capability, risk, reward, and
the potential for violence.
The presence of children at
the Malheur Refuge greatly
complicates any potential
plan for dynamic action,
and it is likely the occupiers
understand this fact.
Law enforcement
responses have evolved dra-
matically since the highly
criticized incidents at Ruby
Ridge, Waco, and elsewhere.
As well they should have.
While those two debacles
were highly charged and
publicized, there have been
many others — and no short-
age of incidents in which
the suspects lived, but law
enforcement officers were
killed because the tactics
were terrible.
Over the last 15 years
law enforcement nationwide
— where it is diligent and
good — has learned from
those mistakes, and taken
great pains to revolution-
ize, install, and train ways
to resolve an issue without
violence on either side of the
equation. Often, that takes
considerable time, but time
isn’t critical — getting it
right is.
Most of this innovation
is born at the Los Angeles
County Sheriff ’s Office,
which serves more high-risk
felony warrants than any
other agency in the United
States, and exists firmly
on the cutting edge of legal
tactical intervention. Where
SWAT teams — an abso-
lute necessity in modern
law enforcement practices
— once routinely conducted
direct action missions for
even the slightest offense,
the LASO pioneered and
has largely perfected the
surround-and-call-out. The
premise of this tactic is based
solidly in the question of exi-
gency. In other words, in the
absence of a direct threat to
human life, what’s the rush?
Property damage doesn’t
count unless it rises to the
level of a direct threat to life.
Wait them out.
At the Malheur Refuge,
where the FBI will ultimately
decide the outcome, there
currently exists ZERO exi-
gency. Pathetic and desperate
as they may be, the acts of
stealing cars, rifling through
files, and the bulldozing of
sagebrush do not constitute
a necessity to execute an
immediate intervention. This
is particularly true where
there are children pres-
ent, the subjects are heavily
armed, and have insinuated
a willingness to respond vio-
lently to law enforcement.
As a former SWAT team
leader, I firmly believe
that the more the public
understands and appreci-
ates the massive evolution
that has taken place in law
enforcement tactics, and the
intent behind them, the more
likely they are to support the
outcome, even if it takes a lot
of time — and particularly if
it avoids violence.
In today’s world, every
tactical team worth its salt
trains to rigorous standards,
usually established by the
state in which they operate.
They integrate negotiators,
canines, gas teams, entry
teams, security elements,
and snipers. Most quality
teams have trauma doctors
qualified to triage and treat.
They debrief incidents from
around the country and learn
from mistakes that have been
made. And they practice at
full speed the absolute neces-
sity of patience and good
judgment in extremely chal-
lenging scenarios.
The FBI, with its many
regional teams, and its highly
respected Hostage Rescue
Team, is no different.
The FBI will wait. They
will attempt to negotiate, and
while they are negotiating
they will wait for the U.S.
Attorney’s Office to seek
search and arrest warrants.
In the absence of warrants,
which establish the legal
foundation for action, they
will do nothing at all. If and
when the arrest warrants are
filed, they will wait some
more.
They will create opportu-
nities to arrest the participants
17
off-site, where they can more
efficiently control the out-
come. They will jam cell
phones. They will eventually
cut the power. They will act
like a giant anaconda, wait-
ing for its victim to exhale
and then tightening the coil.
And if they are forced into a
gunfight, which they abso-
lutely do not want, they
will utilize every means at
their disposal, which means
highly efficient long range
and aerial platform snipers,
armored rescue vehicles, the
deployment of cold and hot
gas — precisely calculated to
the square footage, but which
will likely burn the buildings
down anyway — all while
making continuous efforts to
have the occupiers surrender
peacefully.
They will go the extra
mile to resolve the issue
without bloodshed, no mat-
ter what the occupiers throw
at them. That is the new
standard.
It is an old maxim that no
one wins a siege. It has taken
law enforcement a long time
to remember and absorb
this lesson from history, but
what is clear today is that
the FBI is currently utiliz-
ing the most modern tactics
practiced by law enforce-
ment. They should do a bet-
ter job of explaining that, but
in the meantime their train-
ing, foresight, and restraint,
should be applauded.