Behind the Bastards

Part Two: Daryl Gates: The Man Who Invented SWAT Teams and DARE

October 23, 2025

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  • The initial escalation of the 1965 Watts incident, which led to widespread unrest, was directly caused by the arrival of police officers, including those with shotguns and batons, despite community leaders advising restraint. 
  • Daryl Gates's response to the Watts riots was to conclude that the LAPD needed a more heavily armed and violent paramilitary response, leading directly to his co-creation of the first SWAT team. 
  • The creation of SWAT teams was heavily influenced by the U.S. military's counterinsurgency tactics in Vietnam, and this concept of treating domestic unrest as an insurgency was popularized by the live broadcast of the 1974 LAPD SWAT standoff with the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). 
  • Daryl Gates' heavy-handed anti-gang sweeps, such as Operation All Caps Hammer, were ineffective at reducing violence and were instead used to justify demands for more police power and less accountability. 
  • The DARE program, while failing in its stated goal of reducing drug use, succeeded in its underlying goal of normalizing and legitimizing police presence within schools and framing youth drug use as a carceral issue rather than a public health concern. 
  • Daryl Gates' tenure culminated in his failure to manage the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, stemming from the acquittal of officers who beat Rodney King, leading to his forced resignation after a report cited a fundamental problem of supervision, management, and leadership within the LAPD. 

Segments

Watts Incident Ignition
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(00:03:11)
  • Key Takeaway: The 1965 Watts incident began with the routine traffic stop and arrest of Marquette Fry for drunk driving, which quickly escalated due to the presence of armed officers and a gathering crowd.
  • Summary: Marquette Fry was pulled over for drunk driving on August 7, 1965, and failed a sobriety test, leading to his arrest. As his mother arrived and began yelling, a crowd gathered, and the situation worsened when police reinforcements arrived with batons and shotguns. The initial confrontation resulted in Fry being struck by a baton, leading to widespread anger and the start of the unrest.
Gates’s Response to Unrest
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(00:09:54)
  • Key Takeaway: Daryl Gates, arriving on the scene, misinterpreted the scattered violence as an ‘insurgency situation’ requiring a massive police presence, ignoring local advice to de-escalate by withdrawing officers.
  • Summary: Gates arrived during a ‘crazed carnival atmosphere’ and, contrary to advice from local leaders who suggested letting the situation cool down, decided the solution was to flood the neighborhood with hundreds of police officers. This escalation directly led to the ensuing six days of riots, resulting in 34 deaths and over a thousand injuries.
Framing the Watts Riots
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(00:17:13)
  • Key Takeaway: LAPD leadership, including Chief Parker and Gates, framed the Watts rebellion using military terminology like ‘Viet Cong insurgency’ to justify a paramilitary response, establishing a precedent for viewing domestic unrest as warfare.
  • Summary: Public officials framed the events as an urban governance crisis comparable to the Vietnam insurgency, with Gates viewing the disorder as a loss of police control over racialized cityscapes. This framing established a pattern of applying foreign military logic to domestic policing, which Gates later applied to the creation of SWAT.
Birth of SWAT Teams
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(00:26:04)
  • Key Takeaway: The first SWAT team was co-created by Daryl Gates and John Nelson immediately following the Watts riots, explicitly designed to apply military counterinsurgency tactics to American cities.
  • Summary: Gates and Nelson, both believing the LAPD failed in Watts, developed the SWAT concept to crack down on urban insurgencies, drawing heavily from U.S. military counterinsurgency manuals. The initial acronym was ‘Special Weapons Attack Teams,’ which was changed to ‘Special Weapons and Tactics’ due to optics concerns.
First SWAT Action and Funding
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(00:35:37)
  • Key Takeaway: The inaugural action of the first LAPD SWAT team was a massive, heavily armed raid on the Black Panther Party headquarters, which resulted in a massive firefight but no fatalities, demonstrating the unit’s violent, yet ineffective, initial deployment.
  • Summary: The first SWAT operation involved officers bringing grenade launchers and dynamite to a Black Panther headquarters raid, leading to an exchange of over 5,000 rounds, miraculously without any deaths. Despite the massive use of force, the operation was deemed a failure as the arrested Panthers were acquitted on most charges, yet the event served as a public relations success for militarized policing.
SWAT Proliferation and Copaganda
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(00:40:04)
  • Key Takeaway: Federal funding via the LEAA and the simultaneous release of the popular TV show SWAT fueled the rapid, nationwide adoption of militarized policing tactics modeled after the LAPD’s new unit.
  • Summary: Federal funds and surplus military equipment were funneled to local departments through the LEAA to promote counterinsurgency policing, while the 1975 TV show SWAT created public enthusiasm for the unit’s capabilities. This combination propelled Daryl Gates into the LAPD Chief position in 1978, cementing his role as the public face of militarized law enforcement.
Gates’s Tenure and Controversies
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(00:48:01)
  • Key Takeaway: As LAPD Chief, Gates defended police brutality, notably blaming chokehold deaths on the ‘racial anatomy’ of Black victims, while simultaneously leveraging the crack epidemic to gain support for increased police power from community leaders.
  • Summary: Gates survived calls for his resignation after making racist remarks about Latino officers and defending the police shooting of a Black widow over a gas bill dispute. He successfully built a coalition to support increased militarization by framing it as necessary to combat the crack epidemic, a strategy that proved effective for expanding his power.
Gates’ 1987 Crime Brag
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(00:59:48)
  • Key Takeaway: Daryl Gates declared street crime eradicated in 1987, immediately followed by a high-profile gang drive-by killing, which he spun as proof police needed more militarization.
  • Summary: On Good Friday 1987, Daryl Gates held a press conference claiming success in ending street crime via mass arrests and anti-gang sweeps. That same night, a fatal drive-by shooting occurred, which Gates used to argue for increased police resources like more guns and tanks. This failure was reframed as a need for greater police power, leading to the ‘super sweep’ Operation All Caps Hammer.
DARE Program Origins and Impact
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(01:04:17)
  • Key Takeaway: DARE institutionalized law enforcement funding by corporations and successfully embedded schools into the carceral state by framing drug use solely as a law enforcement problem.
  • Summary: Created in 1983, DARE involved uniformed officers lecturing students on drug dangers, often using anecdotal scare tactics. The program was corporately sponsored, allowing businesses to fund police work in schools, institutionalizing business interest support for law enforcement. Data suggests DARE did not decrease drug use and may have increased experimentation, but it succeeded in normalizing police presence in education.
Effective Drug Education Contrast
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(01:09:16)
  • Key Takeaway: Effective drug education focuses on harm reduction, such as providing information on Narcan and Good Samaritan protections, rather than solely relying on punitive, carceral responses.
  • Summary: Effective drug education acknowledges that experimentation occurs and focuses on harm reduction, teaching students where to get Narcan and assuring them that calling 911 for an overdose will not result in arrest. DARE’s exclusive focus on carceral resources—police intervention—failed to address the real dangers of tainted substances or provide necessary emergency support.
LAPD Scandals and Gates’ Decline
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(01:12:46)
  • Key Takeaway: Escalating LAPD scandals involving officer misconduct, coupled with Gates’ hardline political surveillance and public gaffes, eroded his support leading into the 1990s.
  • Summary: The LAPD faced numerous scandals, including officers engaging in sexual misconduct with minors and theft, leading to calls for Gates’ resignation and budget cuts. Gates maintained a McCarthy-esque surveillance division targeting left-wing organizers and journalists, and infamously suggested casual drug users should be shot, despite his own son being a repeat drug offender. An investigative panel concluded the LAPD’s excessive force issues were fundamentally a problem of leadership.
Rodney King and Gates’ Exit
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(01:15:29)
  • Key Takeaway: The acquittal of the officers who brutally beat Rodney King triggered the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, which Daryl Gates was unprepared to manage, leading directly to his forced resignation.
  • Summary: The acquittal of four LAPD officers in the Rodney King beating trial on April 29, 1992, immediately sparked widespread rioting, looting, and violence across Los Angeles. Gates was initially absent, attending a fundraiser against police reform, and the LAPD lacked any plan for disorder control, requiring the National Guard. A subsequent report blamed Gates for the lack of planning, culminating in his resignation on June 28, 1992.