A History of Bravery and Conflict Essay Example for Free

A History of Bravery and Conflict Essay Although many protest against the SWAT team’s use of force, history shows how vital it is for SWAT teams to wield more power than standard police officers. SWAT officers have captured and killed criminals who could not be stopped by conventional methods. Without them, incidents such as the Texas Tower Massacre might occur with more frequency and with a greater number of casualties. Therefore, the SWAT team ought to be applauded for its power of protection and not hampered in its duties. ? Although many note that specialized weapons and tactics were used as early as the time of the civil war, special SWAT teams were not created until much later. Chris Pizzo cites William E. Fairbain as the creator of the first SWAT team. Fairbain organized his specialized teams, the Shanghai Municipal Police Force, to defend against riots, guerilla attacks and terrorists in the 1920s. Fairbain’s men were the first police group to use automatic weapons, carbines and high-powered rifles. They also used body armor, armed motorcycles, and chemicals to repel attackers. They countered snipers, used martial arts, and excelled at hand-to-hand combat. While Fairbain’s men originally worked in Shanghai, they brought their methods back to the United States (Pizzo, 2007). In Los Angeles, the need for teams with specialized weapons and tactics was made evident in 1965, when Marquette Frye, a black man, was arrested for driving while intoxicated. His mother tried to stop the arrest, and drew a crowd. The event sparked anger and rioting against policemen in Los Angeles. According to Lee W. Minikus, the rioters threw rocks and gigantic pieces of concrete at patrol officers. The officers were armed only with eleven shotguns – one per car, and batons. After being attacked, they used their batons on the rioters to defend themselves. According to Minikus, â€Å"They were not rioters, as far as I’m concerned, they were gangsters. † The officer’s neighbors, some white, some Latino, defended his wife and children, holding rifles on their front porches. The riots left 25 blacks and nine whites dead. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 others were injured. Rioters burnt businesses to ash and damaged more than 600 properties. Ironically, Minikus and Marquette remained friends after the incident (Reitman Landsberg, 2005). In the summer of 1966, America’s need for SWAT teams became even clearer when a tragedy struck Texas. A disturbed engineering student and former marine, Charles Whitman, killed his wife and parents, then climbed to a tower on the University of Austin’s campus and began shooting down students. Whitman allowed others to get close enough to aid the wounded victims, and then shot the would-be rescuers as well. He even shot an eight months pregnant woman in the stomach, killing her baby. When police arrived on the scene, they had to plan to reach Whitman or to help the victims. Some tried to bring him down with an airplane, but were repelled by his gunfire. Eventually, the officers were able to bring Whitman down by using an underground tunnel. When they reached Whitman, he fired on them. They returned fire and finally ended Whitman’s attack (Snow, 1996). The tower massacre lead police to the realization that they needed to be more prepared for such attacks. Meanwhile, after the Watts riots, several snipers shot innocent civilians and police were not able to respond efficiently to such disasters. The Los Angeles Police Department was the first to find a way to respond (LAPD, 2008). Officer John Nelson, supported by inspector Darryl Gates, came up with a special weapons and tactics squad, which would enlist a small group of extremely disciplined officers to handle the most challenging and unusual problems faced by the force. The original LAPD SWAT team consisted of fifteen men, who had both police and military experience. They operated once a month, or when they were actually needed. By the 1970s, however, SWAT teams operated on a full-time basis in larger cities. In 1971, they officially adopted the name of SWAT (Snow, 1996).

Blessing and Vultures Essay -- English Literature

Blessing and Vultures In the poems ‘Blessing’ and ‘Vultures’, the poets both use vivid descriptive language to create pictures and moods. In ‘Blessing’, the poet begins the second stanza with the word ‘imagine’. This word involves the reader and tells them to create a mental picture of the scene. He uses lots of onomatopoeia in this stanza. Words like ‘drip’ and ‘splash’ create an image of a small amount of water falling into a tin mug. This also creates a mood of thirst and drought. The stanza is finished with the line â€Å"the voice of a kindly god.† This personifies the water and makes it seem heavenly. The third stanza creates a sense of rushing, in the same way that water would rush out of the burst pipe. This mood is created by using fast sounding words, such as ‘rush’, ‘bursts’ and ‘crashes’. These words are also onomatopoeic because they sound like the pipe bursting, the water rushing and crashing to the ground. It uses the word ‘silver’ metaphorically to describe the look of the water and also how precious it is. Another metaphor is â€Å"a roar of tongues†. Th...

Systems Analysis and Design Case Study Chapter 4

Hoosier Burger a. How was the Hoosier Burger project identified and selected? What focus will the new system have? The Hoosier burger project was identified through its short-comings by the Mellankamps. The project was selected as the business grows and demand is at an all-time high, the current systems at Hoosier Burger are not getting the job done. This is causing customer discontent and is affecting business negatively. The new system is going to be heavily focused on inventory control systems.While other systems of Hoosier Burger will be looked at, an improved inventory control system will greatly increase productivity for the Mellankamps. b. Identify the Hoosier Burger project’s scope. The Hoosier Burger project’s scope is to implement new systems in inventory control, customer ordering, and management reporting systems. This project is set up to increase the overall effectiveness by introducing new and improved systems. Alternatively, a new point-of-sale system ma y be within the scope of this project as well. Petrie’s Electronics 1.Look over the scope statement. If you were an employee at Petrie’s Electronics, would you want to work on this project? Why or why not? As an employee of Petrie’s Electronics, I would want to be on this project team. The project itself is being put together with the primary goal of increasing the amount of customers the frequent Petrie’s Electronics. As an employee of almost any title with in the company, increased customer base is equally important to everyone. Sales associates will make more sales, managers will increase their monthly numbers, profits will rise, and as the tores become busier, all positions will be in full demand and lay-offs would be less likely in a thriving business. If I had the opportunity to be on the team I would, and I would want to increase all odds of the projects success. 2. If you were part of the management team at Petrie’s Electronics, would you a pprove the project outlined in the scope statement? What changes, if any, need to be made to the document? As part of management, I would approve of the current scope statement. The statement clearly outlines what the goals of the project are in the Project Overview section.This overview is then broken down into individual objectives needed to be completed in an effort for the project to meet its goals. The only thing I would like added to the scope statement would be some kind of expected outcome. Obviously the goals are increased profits by creating a customer loyalty program. What could be added is what the project is expected to cost and how much of an increase would be expected after the implementation of the project. These estimates could be easily attained by researching other companies before/after their customer loyalty programs. 3.Identify a preliminary set of tangible and intangible costs you think would occur for this project and the system it describes. What intangible benefits do you anticipate for the system? Tangible Costs: cost of project team, cost of implementing the project (rewards cards, rewards tracking software, rewards points redeemables) Intangible Costs: operational inefficiency, employee moral due to increased workload Intangible Benefits: customer loyalty, store reputation, competitive necessity 4. What do you consider to be the risks of the project as you currently understand it?Is this a low-medium-or high-risk project? Justify your answer. Assuming you were part of Jim’s team, would you have any particular risks? I think one of the biggest risks of this project is time. With having busy team members on the project, getting things done and on schedule is going to be the most difficult part of the project. Overall, I would assess this project as a low or medium risk project. Historically, the trends in customer loyalty programs in the retail industry are huge. This programs do everything that Jim’s team is set out to do.Spending enough research time into other companies’ rewards programs make this a rather easy project to streamline. As a member of the team, my assumed risks would be not being able to perform my duties as an employee of Petrie’s Electronic and as a member of the project team. If I am unable to perform these duties, it could negatively affect the security of my job with the company. 5. If you were assigned to help Jim with this project, how would you utilize the concept of incremental commitment in the design of the baseline project plan?Jim outlined some objectives in the scope statement for this project. After each of these objectives have been tackled and overcome, I would utilize incremental commitment to review what has just been accomplished, what is left to be accomplished and whether or not the project team is meeting its goals and if those goals are still in line with the companies goals. 6. If you were assigned to Jim’s team for this project, when in the project schedule (in what phase of after which activities are completed) do you think you could develop an economics analysis of the proposed system?What economic feasibility factors do you think would be relevant? After each of the objectives in Jim’s scope statement have been addressed, that is answered on paper with how they plan on accomplishing the task, would be a good time to assess economic analysis. At this time, there would be a clear understanding of what should be needed to address each objective successfully and analyzing the economic feasibility at this point would be much clearer than before. Relevant Economic feasibility factors:One Time Costs such as system development cost and hardware/software cost Recurring Costs such as data storage costs, issuing customer reward card cost, and redeeming points for rewards cost 7. If you were assigned to Jim’s team for this project, what activities would you conduct in order to prepare the details of the bas eline project plan? Explain the purpose of each activity and show a timeline or schedule for these activities. First, access all feasibilities of the project. If the project is not going to be feasible then it needs to be cut off right away.Accessing feasibilities up front will help make the project is worth it. * Economic Feasibility * Making sure the company has the money to fund the project and that the overall result of the project will aid in increasing profits for the company * Technical Feasibility * Outline what technologies would be needed to make this project successful and to make sure that the company either has access to these technologies and/or is willing to acquire these technologies. * Operational Feasibility * Assess whether or not the project’s goals are realistic.If the project’s goals are unrealistic then it’s a waste of money. Attainable goals are important. * Schedule Feasibility * Can this project be completed in a timely manner in which the company will benefit the most from the project? * Legal and Contractual Feasibility * Will implementing this project break any laws or contracts that the company is bound by? * Political Feasibility * Make sure that stakeholders understand the risk and rewards of this project. Once all feasibilities have been accessed, its time outline management issues.A plan needs to be set in place that details what all team members are responsible for and what the reporting procedures will be. This is important so that project time isn’t wasted on simple things such as figuring out how deliverables will be evaluated and what specific issues the team may face during the project. Now the system description should be written. This section will clearly mark what the project team’s system plans to deliver. This is also a good time to come up with an alternate system. Finally, the introduction of the Baseline Project Report will be written.This section will provide an overview of the entire project addressing the issues facing the project and how their proposed system will handle the issues. 8. Once deployed, what are the operational risks of the proposed system? How do you factor operational risks into a system development plan? The operational risks of this project would be that the loyalty rewards program isn’t enticing enough to keep the customer loyal to Petrie’s Electronics. On the other hand, if the program is overly enticing to the customer, this may lead to a much higher cost of maintaining the program for the foreseeable future.Throughout the development of the system, there should be applied incremental commitment. This will continuously analyze and assess where the project is at and how it can meet the goals of the company. Operational risk is something that should be addressed during each of these assessments. At some point if the risk outweighs the reward, then the project needs to be shut down. If the risk is kept in check, the proj ect can continue until the next assessment after a particular activity or phase.

The Formula For Creating A Successful Business - 2752 Words

Many people question whether there is a formula for creating a successful business. The answer to that question is no. The formula for a successful business is constantly changing due to various reasons. Business has evolved from shabby convenience stores corner to international corporations. There has been an unmistakable trend toward bigness in business since the mid-1980s. Corporate mergers are now very common and undoubtable effective. The US government regulates these businesses through antitrust laws. Corporate mergers and antitrust laws play a crucial role for producers and consumers. The historical backdrop of the American economy since the Civil War has become a corporate focus. A business game changer arrived at in the early†¦show more content†¦After years of groundwork by the Roosevelt and Taft administration, lawsuits were brought against the Standard Oil and American Tobacco trust. The Supreme Court believed that both companies used their bigness to gain power in each of their relevant entities. The Standard Oil trust forced the railroads, which was basic means of transportation of oil at the time, to give discounts and rebates on oil it shipped as well as oil shipped by its competitors. The Standard Oil trust used unlawful practices to force its rivals out of business. Due to the vague language the Sherman Antitrust Law was written rather vaguely, the Democratic Party passed the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914. The Clayton Antitrust Act prohibited practices that lessened competition or tended to create a monopoly. The framework of the Clayton Antitrust Law banned five unlawful business practices. Price discrimination, Interlocking stockholding, Interlocking directorates, Tying contracts, and Exclusive dealings were the five bad business practices. The Federal Trade Act was passed in 1914. The Federal Trade Commission, also known as the â€Å"FTC†, purpose was to guard any antitrust anticompetitive practices that were outlawed by the Sherman and Clayton Act. By 1920 the courts had stripped the Federal Trade Commission of most of its powers. In