28FIGURES
4MAKERS
2001EARLIEST
2026LATEST
THE LEGEND
He started on the beat, and for most people that is still who he is: the officer on the corner, the radio on his shoulder, the patrol car parked across the end of the street. But somewhere along the way the jobs got harder. Armed sieges, hijackings and hostage takings needed officers who trained like soldiers and arrived in a van with the doors already open.
So he changed shape. The peaked cap gave way to a ballistic helmet, the tunic to a plate carrier, the truncheon to a carbine and a breaching tool. He learned to fast-rope from helicopters, to clear rooms in a stack of four, to swim into a harbour at night. Every city that needed him gave him a different name, a different patch and a different camouflage, from Hong Kong to Paris to El Paso. What stays the same is the job: go in when everyone else is coming out, and bring the hostages home.
OFF THE PAGE
The tactical police officer is a modern figure with a clear history. The Philadelphia Police Department formed the first SWAT team in the United States in 1964, and the Los Angeles Police Department followed in 1967. Inspector Daryl Gates, who had seen officers pinned down during the 1965 Watts riots, proposed the unit, and his deputy chief approved the name Special Weapons and Tactics.
Other forces built their own. Hong Kong's Special Duties Unit, the "Flying Tigers", grew out of a marksman unit raised after a 1971 hijacking and took its name in 1974; British SAS advisers trained its first assault teams in 1978. The FBI's Hostage Rescue Team became operational in 1983. France created RAID in 1985, and between 2015 and 2019 the regional GIPN intervention groups were folded into it. China's Snow Leopard Commando Unit, part of the People's Armed Police, was formed in 2002 and helped secure the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
These units sit between the police station and the battlefield, which is precisely why they caught the eye of military figure collectors.
IN SIXTH SCALE
In sixth scale the policeman lives on the military shelf, built by the same makers and judged by the same standards. DamToys owns this ground. Its tactical police releases follow real units closely: Hong Kong's SDU "Flying Tigers" as assault team members and team leaders, FBI SWAT agents from San Diego, an FBI Hostage Rescue Team agent, a DEA Special Response Team agent from El Paso, RAID officers in Paris, GIPN officers in Marseille, China's Snow Leopard Commando Unit and the People's Armed Police counter-terrorism force. Each comes with the helmets, vests, radios, weapons and breaching kit of its unit, and DamToys has returned to the SDU more than once.
ZC World took a different angle with its Hong Kong Police Tactical Unit officer, a uniformed patrol figure rather than an assault operator.
Collectors here look for the right patches, the correct pattern on the uniform and gear that matches a unit's real issue for a given year. Many shelve these figures beside the Soldier and the wider Military range, and some rebuild them with spare kit to show a different role inside the team.
RELEASES BY YEAR
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4
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2
1
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1
1
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4
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2
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20012026
BY MANUFACTURER
DamToys
13
Hot Toys
9
Medicom Toy
4
ZC World
2
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