06/02/2023; UPDATED: 06/16/2023
McLean County Sheriff Matt Lane is requesting approval of an intergovernmental agreement with the Bloomington Police Department for new Special Weapons & Tactics (SWAT) capabilities.
As Agitation Rising previously reported back in March, the Sheriff currently has no SWAT capabilities and often has to rely on Illinois State Police assistance. Both Bloomington & Normal Police Departments have SWAT teams, though NPD calls its team the Emergency Response Unit (ERU).
Now, an official intergovernmental agreement with BPD is being presented to the McLean County Board for approval. If approved, the agreement would create the Emergency Assistance Group for Law Enforcement (EAGLE). It would require additional training & equipment, to be paid by McLean County tax-payers.
7.1 Training—Officers selected to participate in EAGLE teams will be required to complete applicable trainings as specified by the team’s Tactical Commander or designee. Any additional specialty training not required for participation on the team will be at the discretion of the Participating Agency.
7.2 Equipment—The Tactical Commander shall provide a list of required equipment to each Participating Agency. Each Participating Agency is responsible for having on hand and supplying its own equipment as dictated by the Tactical Commander.
7.3 Attendance—It is expected that the officers of Participating Agencies will attend all trainings and
call-outs. In the event that an officer is absent, said absence should be reported to the Tactical
Commander. At the discretion of the Tactical Commander, excessive absence from training and call-outs could result in suspension from call-outs up to dismissal from the EAGLE team.
The EAGLE team would give a blank check for more money towards policing. How many calls for service annually by the Sheriff’s Deputies even require a SWAT response? This information was not included in the draft proposal submitted to the McLean County Justice Committee.
Sheriff Lane has already admitted there is not a need for the Sheriff Department to have SWAT capabilities. This is just something that would be nice to have. Sheriff Lane said this at a February meeting of the McLean County Libertarians. Independent journalist Steve Suess asked Lane what the increased need is for County SWAT capabilities, and what types of incidents would they be deployed for? There was no increased need.
Sheriff Lane initially said he would deploy SWAT teams only to active shooting incidents & hostage situations. Lane said many domestic violence cases end up in hostage situations.
Suess pressed Lane, “So, explicitly for violent crimes; you wouldn’t use it for like drug busts?”
Lane said, “No, no, no, no, no—well, for drug warrants, yes.” Lane gave the example of searching the house of a drug suspect that is suspected of having firearms. However, he denied SWAT would be deployed for simple drug busts.
However, nationwide the most common SWAT deployments are for drug enforcement. 1 The Miami Herald reported in 2002, “Police say they want [SWAT teams] in case of a hostage situation or a Columbine-type incident, but in practice the teams are used mainly to serve search warrants on suspected drug dealers. Some of these searches yield as little as a few grams of cocaine or marijuana.”2
The War on Drugs, both locally & nationally, has been a colossal failure. Hands down, drugs have been winning this war. It creates profits for police unions, corrections officer unions, weapons & training companies, and prisons. And that’s the point: to keep money flowing towards police militarization and mass incarceration.
The proposal will first go in front of the Justice Committee next Tuesday, June 6th, 2023, at 4:30 PM. If approved, it would go to the full county board on Thursday, June 15th, 2023. Despite this being an intergovernmental agreement with BPD, the Bloomington City Council would not need to approve it. Bloomington City Council has already approved funding for BPD’s SWAT team. The EAGLE agreement requires McLean County to fund it’s own SWAT members.
CORRECTION: This article originally stated the Bloomington City Council would also have to approve the intergovernmental agreement. This is not the case, and the article has been updated to reflect that.
- Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow. The New Press, 2010. 74.
- Scott Andron, “SWAT: Coming To A Town Near You?” Miami Herald, May 20, 2002.
