Sultans Of SWAT

Competition Has Law Enforcement Assault Teams Gunning to Be the Best

MOYOCK, N.C.

David Grossman paced the hotel ballroom with a microphone, waving his arms like a televangelist and uttering horrific prophecies of doom:

"The bad guys are coming with rifles and body armor!"

"They're gonna sweep through your mall!"

"They will destroy our way of life in one day!"

A retired Army lieutenant colonel, Grossman is the author of "On Killing" and the founder of the Killology Research Group and its Web site, killology.com. He came to the World SWAT Challenge and Conference to address nearly 100 cops -- members of paramilitary police units known as SWAT teams, which is short for Special Weapons And Tactics. Grossman told them we're living in a "new Dark Age," an era of al Qaeda-style terrorism combined with Oklahoma City-style bombings and Columbine-style school shootings by kids whose brains are warped by violent video games.

Most people are sheep, Grossman said, and you are the warriors who must protect them from the wolves.

"Embrace the warrior spirit!" he yelled.

"Live the warrior life!" he bellowed.

"We need warriors who embrace that dirty, nasty four-letter word kill!" he proclaimed.

Whew!

Maybe he's right. Maybe the barbarians are at the gates and SWAT teams are our last line of defense. But in America, where almost everything eventually becomes a form of entertainment, SWAT is now a sport and these cops had come for the first World SWAT Challenge, a two-day, made-for-TV competition that will become a reality show scheduled to air July 17 on ESPN2.

"It's really kind of a niche sport," says Jack O'Connor, the mastermind of the SWAT Challenge.

For more than a decade, he has produced similar "niche sport" events for cable TV, such as firefighter competitions and Army Ranger competitions. He has also produced two previous SWAT shows for ESPN, but those featured only American teams and this event was designed to include teams from around the world. But after the Madrid bombing in March, all the European teams dropped out. And as O'Connor, 55, sat in the audience at Grossman's speech, he looked worried.