| | | Police Snipers |  In popular culture the term sniper has come to mean
anyone who uses a rifle on another person from any but
the shortest distance. Murderers who use rifles
against civilians, such as the beltway sniper, John
Allen Muhammad, have come to be known as well. In
truth, only trained professionals that have undergone
training in a sniper scout program, such as the United
States Marine Corps Sniper Scout School, and have
learned to use camouflage ghillie suits and stalking skills are
actual snipers.
Police marksmen and sharp shooters are often
incorrectly called snipers. These specially trained
units are deployed only in extreme emergencies and
hostage situations. Police snipers never shoot to
incapacitate. They only shoot to kill. Police snipers
are also never employed against material targets, only
in situations where life is in danger. Police snipers
also make their shots from much shorter distances than
the long distances employed by marine and army
snipers.
During the 1972 summer olympic games in Munich, a
palestinian terrorist group known as Black September
raided the olympic village, taking the Israeli olympic
team hostage. Because Germany's constitution forbids
it, the German military could not get involved in what
was considered a domestic matter. In an attempt to
save the Israeli athletes, untrained German policemen
were given sniper rifles. In the botched rescue
attempt that followed, all eleven of the athletes were
killed. The German government then established a
police level branch sharpshooter task force to handle
similar situations in the future. The branch was named
Grenzschutzgruppe 9, or GSG9 for short. Today this
group is considered the finest and most well trained
of it's kind in the entire world. |
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