Replace SWAT Teams With Volunteers

* On the surface, it appears that the SWAT team is a very important safeguard to the well-being of residents living in a world of increasing drugs and violence. Nothing could be further from the truth. Overkill and brute force only begets an ever more organized reaction. Also, we have recently witnessed the tragedy of friendly fire, where a young officer was gunned down accidentally by one of his fellow SWAT team associates.

We as a society do not condone the use of arms by criminals and drug gangsters. Why should we allow the police with our blessings to intervene, many times very arbitrarily, to impose a final solution to a basic social problem?

I call for the disbanding of all SWAT teams here in Ventura County, and replacing them with a body of courageous volunteers, unarmed, who are willing to intelligently tackle the social problems which will ultimately lead to getting rid of all guns, be they handguns, Saturday night specials or automatic machine guns. These volunteers can be made up of any proportion of present police officers and ordinary citizens. Each volunteer should be trained to utilize the most up-to-date methods of psychology and sociology, so that in concert with others so trained they can be effective in going directly into areas which are now blighted by social problems.

Only when citizens feel secure with the institutions surrounding them, only when individuals believe that there is a future for themselves, where their lives can be productive and meaningful, only then will we accomplish the disarming of our society. It is the only way that works, so why not let us begin?

NORMAN E. BAUER

Camarillo