Zealous student activists, inspired by a non-aggression philosophy class Street attends, steal a cache of guns and take control of a chemical plant to protest bio-terrorism, threatening to blow it up unless they receive a million-dollar ransom.

Runaway teenager Kathy Benson, seeking shelter in the warehouse, calls police when several men break in. Before fleeing the scene, Kathy gets a clear look at the leader, Gregg Colby, a prominent citizen and former U.S. Senator, attempting to solve his money problems by stealing from his own warehouse, collecting the insurance, and later selling his own ""stolen"" merchandise. He pretends to offer assistance to police investigating the case so that he can silence the only eyewitness, Kathy.

A fanatical terrorist group poses as a documentary crew in a scheme to hold a professional basketball team hostage during its championship game, demanding a multi-million dollar ransom for their cause.

Street's partner, officer Rob Duran, is killed in the premeditated police assassination by two brothers bent on revenging their father's death. That and subsequent police killings serve to shape the psychology of Lt. Dan ""Hondo"" Harrelson's newly formed Special Weapons and Tactics team, ""S.W.A.T."" The team's task is to combat high risk, contemporary, urban crime as a strike force. The team consists of James Street, David ""Deacon"" Kay, T.J.. McCabe, Dominic Luca, and Harrelson. ""S.W.A.T.""'s first assignment is an acid test of their ability to survive as individuals and as a team. Their rigorous training is literally a fight against time.

A convicted murderer's Manson-style "family" engineers his prison escape, but after executing a D.A., this maniacal leader sends a cryptic message to Hondo, naming him as his next victim, along with the jury who found him guilty.

Hondo and his team go after a gang of jewel thieves who make their getaways under water.

While leading the team in the rescue of several women being held hostage by two known killers in a massage parlor, Hondo is grazed by a bullet across his temple. He refuses to take time off for tests until dizziness and blurred vision force him temporarily to relinquish his command to Lt. Purcell, an officer whose methods and personality have a demoralizing effect on the S.W.A.T. team.

Street and his girl friend are trapped in a deserted movie studio planted with bombs by an embittered movie stuntman.

While the S.W.A.T. unit has their hands full foiling both a heist and a kidnapping, a beautiful but nosy reporter arrives at police headquarters, spending a few days with S.W.A.T. members to write an investigative piece.

When a veteran police officer who served with Hondo in Vietnam lobbies to fill in for ailing "Deacon" Kay, Hondo thinks he's the right man for the job - until urban combat dredges up jungle-warfare memories for the embattled vet, triggering a nervous breakdown that risks jeopardizing the entire team.

In order to nab a mysterious sniper who's been murdering a series of men a young model has been dating, Street poses as the beautiful woman's latest boyfriend to lure the sniper out of hiding.

Luca is charged with manslaughter after he is forced to kill a man who was holding his own wife hostage at gunpoint.

Marco, an arsonist-killer posing as a fireman, engineers a fire during Southern California's dry season in the area's most affluent neighborhood. While looting the evacuated home of a wealthy couple, one of Marco's men kills a fireman. When S.W.A.T. is called in to locate a possible sniper, T.J. McCabe is shot and Marco escapes with a truckload of loot.

Two officers go undercover to catch drug dealers.

As Lt. Harrelson lies in a hospital bed, severely wounded, the other members of the team reminisce about their best moments together in clips from previous episodes.

A mentally unbalanced veteran touring a movie studio suddenly thinks he is back fighting in Vietnam.

Syndicate hit men stalk an undercover officer, who plans to testify against the mob.

The SWAT team protects a key government witness against an organized crime boss.

Millionairess Doris Bristol has brought gems into the hospital where she is undergoing cosmetic surgery. Her bodyguard, John DeLeon, is slain after he spots criminal Frank Malloy posing as a dying patient (part of a plan where a woman doctor and he plot to steal the jewels from the socialite). Hondo and his men, who are at the hospital putting together a Christmas party in the children's ward, find themselves on duty when the discovery of DeLeon's body leaves Mrs. Bristol unprotected and in apparent jeopardy.

Clues to the perpetrators of a series of rapes are a religious medal and a Biblical quotation overheard by one of the victims.

A group of militants take over a radio station and demand that their jailed leader be released or they'll blow it up.

Hondo Harrelson and his team are called upon to investigate robbery-homicides in which powerful drills and cutting equipment have been stolen. Meanwhile, Dom Luca is dating a student, Sharon Merlingdale, who is being carefully watched by Mark Worth, one of the killer thieves. The more Sharon sees Dom Luca, the more convinced North becomes that the girl must be eliminated.