It is no small irony that Shemar Moore plays S.W.A.T. team leader Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson in the remake of the popular TV series.
After all, the Los Angeles special weapons and tactics division was headed by infamous Chief Daryl Gates, who militarized the police against his citizens in unprecedented ways. Particularly, it seems, citizens of colour. Gates was forced to resign in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
If S.W.A.T. (an acronym for special weapons and tactics) was seen as a tool of oppression by the Black community (including a famous shootout with the Black Panthers) then the new, reimagined S.