Because of the 1997 North Hollywood shootout. The cops were overwhelmed, outgunned, and afraid, and decided that would never happen again.
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Even in the world of The Andy Griffith Show Sheriff Taylor was supposed to be unusual in that regard, a small-town cop who believed in tolerance and community engagement and who had no use whatsoever for violence.
Again, an aspirational figure rather than a supposed depiction of how real-life cops usually operated (I’m looking at you, Dragnet.)
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Well, except for that one episode where he was acting as marriage counselor to a couple that was constantly fighting violently with each other. After he got them to stop fighting he realized that they were unhappy, so in the end he encouraged them to start fighting again. A really weird take on domestic violence.
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yeah, i mean all you have to do is what they are trained to do. approach from behind the driver’s seat. a person can’t easily turn and fire at someone standing in that position
also, why the f didn’t they “boot” the car? that would have easily stopped it from going anywhere if that were really the concern
my read: the cops wanted some overtime pay and an excuse to play with their toys
if they didn’t then why were they doing all that in the first place? there are people with guns everywhere. the possible existence of a gun in the dude’s car isn’t any different than the existence of one at his home. if they thought the gun was illegal, then that’s probable cause right there
absolutely. id rather cops blocking a road for a day than a shootout. if it takes patience and time to do it right(*) that’s a good thing
this particular situation seems like a disaster of their own making
(* sorry george harrison. errr… james ray )
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Oh, mid-20th-century-America. You were so silly sometimes.
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Their only option would be contracting out to the LA County Sheriff’s Department, which is corrupt as fuck. I’m guessing they chose the lesser of two evils?
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Ah yes, “Smell Segundo,” as residents lovingly deemed it. El Segundo was a sleepy small So-Cal town trapped between LAX and suburban Manhattan Beach. El Segundo was cheap, cheap land back in the 80s because it housed both an oil refinery (Chevron) and the local hyperion plant. Over the years, toxic land was turned into shopping malls and a driving range. Recently, that area has been renamed “Silicon Beach” and became the home to many small start-up tech companies. Land is no longer cheap there, or anywhere really.
Much like Torrance, part of the city’s policing and fire protection budget was subsidized by the oil company. That would explain the military-like buildup of munitions to defend a city that takes up roughly 8 city blocks.
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Poor guy. He should have just let that wallet go. 
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pro-criminal Gascon wants to give the sleeping gunman a medal
I don’t see why you want to drag d’Artagnan into this.
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Yah, I’ve read all about it, but it doesn’t explain why a jurisdiction of 16,000 people completely surrounded LAPD has a SWAT team.
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Is it? Look how it worked out for them.
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Now we have to explain why a bunch of other towns of equally small (or smaller) populations, where nothing has ever happened, also have SWAT teams, though…
Towns that size (e.g. Uvalde) sometimes have SWAT teams. Because America.
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It’s 50/50 that the LA Sheriff Department would have done better. I have zero faith with almost all police departments, but my faith with our county police is in negative numbers. 
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Well at least this cost a lot more.
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Oh yeah? Well my town in France has wine police, so there!
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No doubt the NRA will jump to his defense.
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I guess all those years of providing civilian law enforcement various and sundry military hardware has made them as effective as the Russian military
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