I found this book review on-line and thought it was interesting. These squads were all the rage, in police circles beginning in the 50’s and continuing to the early seventies, before my time. The concept is simple, try to anticipate where an armed robber is likely to strike, put a couple of cops in a back room and wait. When the hijacker shows up and announces his intent, the police step out of the back room and kill him.
There was no sugar coating the police job was to shoot an armed robber in the act. Or they arrest him and put him in prison, as the book points out the police spent a lot of time and manpower for very little in return. It is ironic that with enhanced record keeping, computer analysis, psychological profiling and advanced communications the “Shotgun Squad” may be more viable today than it was in the past.
Dallas shotgun squads targeted armed robbers
Posted: Sunday, February 5, 2017, 12:00 am
In his new book, Holloway’s Raiders ($24.95 paperback), retired Dallas police Capt. E.R. Walt tells the story of the shotgun squads deployed by Dallas police in the ’60s and ’70s to deter armed robberies that had become rampant in the city.
Lt. H. C. Holloway devised the strategy of hiding policemen, armed with shotguns, in the back of convenience stores, liquor stores and other likely targets of pistol-packing robbers. Holloway, who harbored an intense hatred for hijackers, instructed his men to come out blasting away.
“Never give a hijacker the first shot,” he would say, “he might get lucky.”
Or, “I don’t want you to kill a robber without warning… but I think the click [of a shotgun] coming off safety is warning enough.”
Armed robberies in Dallas throughout the ’60s and ’70s had reached the epidemic stage, and small business owners and clerks feared for their lives. Some were brutally slain, even if they complied with the thieves’ demands and forked over the meager proceeds in their cash registers.
Holloway’s intention was two-fold: (1) Catch, and even kill, as many robbers as they could, and (2) possibly prevent robberies by instilling an element of fear in the bad guys’ minds.
The effectiveness of Holloway’s Raiders, as they came to be known, could be debated. On the one hand, they were involved in at least 53 armed encounters with robbers, shot 31 of them, killed 18. And some veteran members of the unit, Walt reports, “insist that the actual number could easily be double that,” since specific records were not kept on the shotgun squads. And there’s no way of knowing how many robberies might have been prevented — and lives saved — because of the program.
On the other hand, it was tedious duty for the shotgun-bearing troops who might sit waiting for weeks, even months, without an incident. Some would argue that it was a hefty expense that might have been put to better use by having more detectives and resources available to track down criminals and solve cases. The program was discontinued in the ’80s.
In any case, it’s a riveting story, told by a writer who was there, a 33-year veteran of the Dallas police force and a former commander of the special operations unit.
Walt also is the author of The Hall Street Shoot-Out about the biggest gun battle in Dallas police history and is working on a third book about the early days of the Dallas Police Department. He lives on a ranch near Cross Plains with his wife Carol, also a writer.