It's a cop's nightmare moment: that flashing decision to squeeze the trigger, fire at a perceived threat -- and be dead wrong.

Instead of a suspect gripping a gun, there's a dying homeowner holding a wallet. Or a fellow officer taking the bullet.

"You're making a decision in a split second that has life and death consequences," said Dr. Laurence Miller, a clinical forensic and police psychologist in Boca Raton, Fla. "It's not like firing on the range."

On the street -- away from the noisy discipline of the gun range -- what's known as the shoot/don't shoot decision is complicated by fear, stress and uncertainty. The adrenaline rush of a raid or curbside confrontation can heighten an officer's anxiety about a suspect's lethal potential.

The light may be bad. There might be shouting and lots of noise. The senses -- hearing and sight -- get distorted, sometimes dulled, sometimes amped up. Any sudden move or sound might seem like a deadly threat.

This potentially disorienting swirl is a prime byproduct of the hard-and-fast raids conducted by elite paramilitary police squads generically known as SWAT (for Special Weapons and Tactics) teams.

Once limited to big-city police departments, these heavily armed tactical units are now a common feature of law enforcement agencies across the country, including those in small towns and rural county sheriff's offices. Their use has become more commonplace, as have aggressive tactics such as the "dynamic entry," the storming of a home or building.

Experts say that gunplay is rare during such raids -- and that fatal shootings of either a suspect or officer even rarer. But when things go wrong, the consequences can be tragic.

That was the case Dec. 1 in New Hanover County. A nighttime raid by a special squad of sheriff's deputies resulted in the death of Peyton Strickland, 18, a college student from Durham. A deputy, Cpl. Christopher Long, fired through the door of Strickland's rental house when he mistook the thud of a battering ram wielded by a team member for hostile gunfire.

Long, a 10-year veteran and full-time member of the sheriff's Emergency Response Team, was fired in the wake of Strickland's death. New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David is pursuing a possible criminal case against him.

Because Strickland was killed during a SWAT team raid, his death provides fresh fuel for an ongoing debate about the proliferation of these squads in the past two decades. Their increased use for drug raids -- and for other, less risky operations that were once handled by patrol officers or detectives -- makes some people uneasy.

Critics say there are no uniform training requirements for these elite units despite the high-powered weapons, aggressive tactics and coordinated movements they employ. Also a worry: They say an accompanying military mindset is changing the culture of law enforcement and eroding the barrier between local police agencies and the nation's armed forces.

"The story of the SWAT teams is kind of sad," said Joseph McNamara, a former police chief in Kansas City and San Jose who helped form the New York City Police Department's Emergency Service's Unit in the early 1970s. "It was an effort to bring a highly trained and highly disciplined team of officers to extraordinary situations. It now has become a routine part of patrol. You cannot be the civil servant, the public servant ... when you're strutting around like an occupying army."

SWAT team defenders, however, say that elite squads of heavily armed officers are necessary in a world of gang warfare and fatal shooting sprees at schools, post offices and the workplace. They point to the heightened threat of terrorist attacks of the post-9/11 era.

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