The Genesis of a Specialized Warrant Squad
In the early spring of 1990, the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D. C. organized a small investigative unit tasked with one mission – the pursuit and apprehension of violent offenders who were wanted and arrest warrants were outstanding.
I was a captain assigned to the Special Operations Division and was to lead up this unit, along with my other duties in charge of the Harbor Branch, Aviation Branch and Reserve Corps. Having been a detective and detective lieutenant I knew some top notch sergeants and was given the liberty of selecting three sergeants and fifteen officers. Once I got the sergeants on board we selected experienced, able, and dedicated officers.
Why a warrant squad? I knew, and others discovered that there was far to many offenders with arrest warrants outstanding on our streets. They were still committing crimes, creating fear in communities and sending a message to others that offending is not that risky. I knew because when I was running a uniformed patrol sector, on days that I was fully staffed, I would send four officers down to headquarters to pick up a warrant book printout. Their assignment would be to find those who last known address was in the district where we worked to spend their tour of duty turning up those who had outstanding warrants. They never failed to put meat on the table.
Why so many outstanding warrants? A detective investigating a violent crime would often identify the offender and obtain a warrant for the individual, but if a cursory effort did not result in locating the wanted person, that was pretty much the end of it. After all, the detective had other cases that needed investigating. New cases were coming in on a daily basis with a closure often hinging on a rapid response to those cases. It was the typical competing issue between two important functions, with the investigation of new cases taking priority over those where a warrant was already in the system.
Based on these experiences, it was agreed that there was a significant need for the creation of a unit whose full time job would be to hunt these violent offenders down and arrest them.
Shortly into the operation, it was realized some of the wanted individuals were out of the city in surrounding jurisdictions. This created a problem. I had worked with the FBI many times and had friends there. I checked in with some of them and made an invitation to them to come join us. Within a few weeks, a supervisor and six special agents joined the team bringing vehicles, telephones and cash, along with the clout to have all the members in the unit to be sworn in as Deputy United States Marshals. This gave my folks the authority across the U. S., not just Washington, DC.
Why a warrant squad? Patrol officers were being exposed to considerable risk every day by making contact with violent offenders who knew they may be wanted. Officers, on the other hand were enforcing traffic laws and other minor violations, not knowing some of the individuals they were contacting were wanted violent offender, risky.
Many of these individuals were high volume offenders, walking crime waves. As long as the offender is circulating in communities, they continue to commit crimes. Their apprehension is crime prevention. Crimes are prevented because they are incarcerated.
There are few violent offenders at large who want to be caught. Many go to great lengths to avoid apprehension. Some go into hiding and develop elaborate schemes to avoid detection. They may leave a city or state only to start anew in another location where detectives may have to repeat the whole detection and warrant process while victims pile up.
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What message are the police sending to the criminal element when a wanted violent offender continues to roam free on the streets? An offender’s associates see him continually frequent their usual hangouts, knowing that he committed that armed robbery or shooting months ago. The message could be “crime pays”, this is a good place to offend, the police are not serious or a threat to offenders as they commit crimes. On the other hand, if wanted persons are vigorously pursued, hounded, tracked down and caught quickly, a message could be sent to offenders that it is very risky to commit crimes here. The police are a serious threat, it is dangerous to offend here and the police will quickly make arrests. This could reduce, displace or prevent crimes.
Timely arrests can increase victims’ satisfaction with the police as well as the general public, show the police as effective and build confidence that the police can do the job. Granted, much of this lies with the detection of the crime, but an important part of the case is a rapid arrest.
The Warrant Squad, like any other specialized unit in a police organization, develops an expertise. Just as the detective becomes an expert on detection, investigation and identification of the culprit, the warrant squad members become experts on how to track down, locate and apprehend wanted persons.
The Warrant Squad is just as important and successful today as it was decades ago. Partners in this unit have now expanded to include the United States Marshall Service. Its primary mission remains to apprehend fugitives wanted for homicide, assault with intent to kill, assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated assault, robbery, aggravated sex offenses and escaped prisoners.
The success of this unit has been so significant that the FBI has used it as a model for the creation of warrant squad units in other cities.
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