Expert: Jack Toomey - 9/15/2010

Question
QUESTION:  Hello my name is Jose Guzman I'm 16 I currently attend
Joliet Central High School. I wanna be a SWAT Team member
after I graduate. I want to be a SWAT because the world we
live in is full of drugs,violence,gangs and many other
problems. I want to try and make a change in the world but,
I believe to change the world we have to change our home
first which is the US. I have a few questions I would
greatly appreciate if u would take the time to answer the
following questions. I want to know what the requirements
are? What positions are there in SWAT? Also do what
suggestions do you have on what i should do now because
there is no doubt in my mind this what i wanna do.Thanks for
your time and again I would really appreciate it if you
emailed me and got back to me on this.

ANSWER: Jose,

I am happy to hear that you want to join a police department.  However I hope that you are not getting any ideas from television.  Nothing that you see on television about police work or SWAT is realistic.

Since you will only be about 17 or 18 when you graduate from high school you would not be old enough to apply for employment with a police department so I would recommend that you go to college and get a degree.  Many police departments require that you attend college. When you graduate you will be old enough to apply.

If you are hired you will go to the police academy and then upon graduation you will be working as a uniformed patrol officer for several years before you have enough experience to work in SWAT.

On many police departments SWAT team members are uniformed patrol officers who work shift work and then respond to SWAT calls when necessary.

The requirements vary from department to department so that is not possible to answer.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for your time, people have told me the way to go is
join the army and then be a cop what could you tell me on
that, and is there any way i could see wat cops or SWAT do
like for job shadowing for school.

Answer
Some police departments have that kind of program.  However most departments have ride-along programs that let you ride with uniformed officers on their patrols.

The army is fine but when are you going to college? You won't go far without a college education and you won't get hired at all by some departments without at least 60 college credits.