Local News

Wounded DPD Officer Warned SWAT Training Lacking

DALLAS (CBS 11 News) ― Five months after a .45 caliber slug ripped through his throat and crushed three vertebrae in his neck, Dallas Police Lieutenant Carlton Marshall undergoes grueling physical therapy and says he warned the department that many of the SWAT officers were not fully trained for the job. "Had I had a higher level of training and been more frequently trained, I probably would have not been shot. I would have seen it coming."

The prognosis for the 44-year old SWAT Commander looked bleak in the hours after he was shot during a drug warrant raid last October. He was never expected to walk again. "I've got to thank my SWAT doctors for saving my life that day.  They gave me an emergency tracheotomy to save my life. Otherwise, I probably would be dead."

With strong encouragement and direction from his physician and the staff of Zale Lipshy Hospital, Marshall plans to walk out the door in time for his wedding anniversary two months from now. Suspended beneath a mobile hydraulic lift in a parachute-style harness, Marshall gingerly tries to regain the use of his legs during physical therapy sessions.

"I don't remember getting hurt. I don't remember getting shot. The whole week is gone, trapped somewhere in my memory. I can tell you that my training is less than it should have been." But Marshall clearly remembers a prophetic warning that he gave to the department's Deputy Chief of Homeland Security and Special Operations exactly two months before he was shot.

CBS 11 obtained a copy of the four-page letter dated August 17, 2007, in which Marshall pleaded for the department to restore more training time for its 54-SWAT officers. Marshall says he wrote it to keep one of his officers from getting killed or wounded. "They put themselves in danger all the time and if they are not trained the only thing that saves them is luck."

Luck ran out for Marshall.  Since the shooting he has suffered a series of life-threatening setbacks including: a stroke, blood clots, pneumonia, and bacterial meningitis. The barrage of antibiotics used to fend off the meningitis permanently destroyed Marshall's hearing.  

During a bedside interview, I wrote questions about the letter on a dry erase board and Marshall answered with a labored voice. "If we don't train our new officers to a certain level, then there is always a risk that they are going to get hurt or they are going to get somebody else hurt. Or that they are going to use deadly force maybe when it shouldn't be used."

 Marshall issued a blunt warning in his letter that one-third of the team's operators lacked enough training. "The youth and inexperience in this assignment combined with reduced training lays the ground work for operational failures and liability issues."

The letter reveals serious concerns about insufficient training that have simmered behind the scenes of the SWAT unit featured on a cable TV reality show that has been both the envy and ridicule of other big city SWAT teams.

Marshall says he began complaining after training time was cut below Dallas SWAT's own standard of five training days per month to three days. "It was actually less. That three days a month was constantly getting interrupted."

SWAT was spending half of its time on crime suppression patrols to help reduce a rash of house and car burglaries, according to Marshall and other officers. Activity reports obtained under the Texas Public Information Act show that SWAT training sharply declined while its officers wrote 1,410 traffic tickets over the four months preceding Marshall's letter.

The Dallas Police Department's Standard Operating Procedures for SWAT indicate such tasks are a secondary mission. "Highly skilled SWAT officers are normally not used for traffic enforcement. It's rather easy to teach a two week old police officer out of the training academy how to write a ticket. It's very difficult to get a SWAT officer to be proficient." says Jim Clark of the National Tactical Officers Association (NTOA), who has 21years of SWAT experience.

Marshall submitted his report to Deputy Chief Tom Lawrence, who has headed up the Homeland Security and Special Operations Division since October of 2006.  During an on-camera interview Lawrence acknowledged that Marshall "had a legitimate concern that he thought we may need more training."

However, Lawrence says he could not remember when he received the report and added that they never discussed it afterwards.  When asked if such serious concerns would have set off an alarm bell calling for quick action, Marshall replied, "Explain to me what the serious issue was that he raises?"

Among his many warnings Marshall stated, "The liabilities that present themselves when officers are inadequately trained or when training standards are not met are enormous."

And he cited a well-known U.S. Supreme Court decision about insufficient training, "Awareness of this issue and the decision not to meet or exceed the industry standard could be considered 'deliberate indifference'."
Lawrence says he was not a lawyer and was unaware of the case.

Scott Wood, the General Counsel for the National Tactical Officers Association, says Marshall's report should have demanded attention from the police department's chain of command, the City Attorney, and the City Council to ensure that SWAT was meeting minimum training standards. "It's the handwriting on the wall that the city officials have been told about the deficiencies. The only thing left to come to fruition is some sort of disaster related to a lack of training."

CBS 11 obtained a draft copy of Marshall's letter from sources inside the department and prodded Lawrence during an on-camera interview to release a copy of the original under the Public Information Act.

 Marshall says he wrote the letter in an attempt to get Lawrence to reinstate Dallas SWAT's training to the industry "best practices" standard of five days a month which is recommended by both the National Tactical Officers Association (NTOA) and the Texas Tactical Police Officers Association (TTPOA).  

Lawrence told CBS 11 that he couldn't answer if Dallas went below the NTOA's industry standard. "I'm not sure of the criteria or the methodology they use to set what's best practices. Does that make sense? I don't understand how they made that decision. Plus the question is are we a full time SWAT team or are we a part time SWAT team?"

The NTOA's Clark says SWAT team members must keep their skills razor sharp in a long list of specialized operations because the skills are perishable and can turn stale without regular practice. "They have to be skilled and proficient in hostage rescue in airplanes, vehicles, buses, vans, anything, anytime, anywhere it happens they've got to be ready for it."

Lawrence says Dallas SWAT currently trains 4-days a month which he says is a national average derived from his survey of departments across the country. Lawrence revealed that a 2005 efficiency study recommended cutting SWAT's training to two days a month and says there is a possibility that the size of the team could be cut.

The Deputy Chief disputes any suggestion that SWAT skills could quickly become stale without more training. "The basic SWAT school gives them a certain skill set. Then they go to some advanced schools to get additional skill sets. That would be like me saying I could take a patrol officer out of the field for six months and put him back in and he wouldn't know how to answer a call. That's not true. The training is not that stale."

Asked if sniper skills could suffer Lawrence replied, "To say that an officer is going to lose that skill set in a week, two weeks, that doesn't seem practical. Within the department we qualify twice a year and virtually every officer in the department manages to go out there and qualify fine. "

Marshall disagrees.  "Snipers are very perishable skills and they need to train quite a bit. In my opinion they weren't practicing enough."

The best SWAT training is on the job serving drug warrants, according to Lawrence and Dallas Chief of Police David Kunkle.  Lawrence says SWAT increased its warrant service by 170% last year alone, more than the three previous years combined.  "Getting out and doing the job is what makes them as good as they are at what they do." Asked if serving warrants was just one small part of a job that also entails hostage rescue and terrorism threats in the wake of 9/11, Lawrence replied, "We train for what we do the most. Serving warrants is what we do the most."

The NTOA's Clark says actual operations are no substitute for training.
"In training you try to identify mistakes and correct the problems. If you make a mistake on a high risk search warrant for narcotics you may not be able to correct the problem. It may cost someone their life."

Marshall's concerns apparently never made it up the chain of command to the desk of Chief David Kunkle, who says he never heard about any of them. Kunkle says some SWAT officers resisted going on crime reduction patrols and that he wanted them to be more productive when they weren't responding to tactical situations.

On that score, Marshall's letter described his initial impression of SWAT upon joining it in November 2006. "They also appeared to be severely lacking when tasked with crime suppression and patrol support responsibilities. They displayed little self-motivation or initiative for proactive enforcement."

After nine months on the job, Marshall reported that, "I realize how much work SWAT actually does, the many directions they are pulled, and the sacrifices these officers make on a daily basis. I have also come to realize how important training is to a SWAT unit's success."

When it comes to a "best practices" SWAT training standard Chief Kunkle says he doesn't know if there is a magic number. Does the Chief believe Marshall's report and later shooting indicated that SWAT was not getting enough training? "I don't believe that to be the case."

Marshall's father feels deeply disappointed by the department's response. D.R. Marshall served on the Dallas police force for thirty years and spent eight of those on its SWAT team. D.R. had never seen his son's letter until CBS 11 showed him its copy. He was struck that it was dated exactly two months before his son was shot. "It's almost prophetic that he's the first victim of what he was trying to prevent right here."

D.R. Marshall says he is putting his hope in Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert to commission an outside investigation of SWAT training and whether it played any role in his son's shooting or any other incidents over the past two years.

Lt. Marshall says city officials need to understand that SWAT is a unique unit. "They have to deal with things that the normal cop doesn't have to deal with. I think training is very important for the lives of the officers and for the lives of potential victims."


The following documents are in Adobe .pdf format.
Click here to read Lt. Marshall's report.
Click here to read a report detailing the Dallas SWAT team's activities for 2007.

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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