My understanding is a criminal action is handled by the state...

My understanding is a criminal action is handled by the state police. A terrorist action is handled Federally and that in short means military.

Police have a role in small "man has his wife hostage due to a domestic dispute" scenarios but not the scale of this episode.

I'd rather a few Special Forces CT guys who have seen a war zone come save me than a 'well it worked okay in training" Policeman.

This event showed just how ill prepared and mentally non aligned our police are with these Muslim nutters.