Starting a SWAT or ERT team

[agipd435]

Our County is contemplating starting an entry team (basically a SWAT type team). I was wondering if anyone had info on the costs/ necessities for such a unit. If anyone has been involved in starting one at their dept, any info you could send me like proposals, budgets, etc... would be appreciated. Our unit would be made up of officers from the sheriff's dept and the cities in the county. Again, thanks in advance for any help.

Mike

[John from Maryland]

The best resource would be the National Tactical Officers Association (www.ntoa.org). They offer an information package on multi-jurisdictional SWAT teams that might be of particular use. Good luck and be safe.

[jeeper]

Also contact the Midwest Tactical Officers Assn. I believe there should be info on NTOA about it. I can think of 7 Teams who are members of Midwest that fit the description which you described. They should be of good assistance.

[CopInNY]

There was a pretty gppd article on this subject in the latest "Police" magazine. See if you can find it.

[Sparky]

Black "tactical" equipment does not a team make.

First thing you need to do is clearly define the proposed teams mission and purpose.

Will this be a hostage rescue team? a high risk arrest warrant team? a high risk search warrant team? jail/prison reaction team? covert surveillance? man tracking?

Each of these things are very different from the others. The training and equipment needed for a HRT is very different than the needs of a team which will also or primarily be conducting high risk arrest warrant service or conducting raids on clandestine labs and drug houses, etc. etc.

What kind of environement will they be working in? Do you have operations on or around bodies of water? Built up urban environments? Suburbs? Rural? A combination?

Do you have airports, bus routes, train routes, etc. that should be factored in? A hostage situation on a bus or plane is very different than one in an apartment on the 5th floor, or the basement of a house in the 'burbs.

I hate to burst your bubble, but you've got alot of homework to do before you start specing out a budget proposal.

What do the "powers that be" want the team to do?

You also need to consider your perimiter teams, hostage negotiators, PIOs, command and control, communications, and a whole host of other ancillary personnel that will each have different and unique equipment and training needs.

Once you get a clearly defined mission for the team, you'll have to explore doctrines, policy, and procedure. Will they use explosive or mechanical breaching? What about snipers/marksmen? Entry K9s? EOD? WMD/HAZMAT etc. etc.

Most part-time teams start small and may focus only on Hostage Rescue with patrol units and K9 working perimeter and a HN attached.

Once that goes well and they get things straight, they get additional training on arrests and search warrants and begin doing that, as well.

but BEWARE! I've seen some teams shoot themselves in the foot by focusing on HRT and then begin doing arrests and search warrants to justify their budget without adjusting their training and procedures. A dynamic hostage rescue entry is a very different animal than executing a search warrant. Don't get trapped into doing that stuff without being properly prepared.

For smaller teams, I tend to prefer a HRT that just does HR. Let the narcs do their own busts and warrants with proper training. Let fugitive division do the high risk arrests. This way.. you have different teams maintaining and practicing different skills as opposed to one part time team using scarce training time to try to maintain various skills.

My two cents

<small>[ 03-25-2003, 12:37 PM: Message edited by: Sparky ]</small>

[agipd435]

The "powers that be" are focused on an entry team, to be primarily used for high risk search and arrest warrants. They will not take the time to start outlining SOP's and engagement guidlines unless we can give them a general start-up cost. We will have to deal with the administrative aspects of mission statment and the such if they approve the money for the training and equipment. Maybe this is putting the cart before the horse, but that is what they want.

Mike

[Sparky]

Well, like a wise old head once told me, "You've got to ride the horse you've got." :)