WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT SWAT TRAINING TODAY?
 

Making Your Unit’s Training Realistic, Safe, and Mission Essential
 

By Allan Garcia

  My experience as a member of a lesser used, regionalized tactical team is that constant training of the “basics” can become too routine for some operators. I think one of the reasons is that the lack of real-world activations causes a lack in motivation and enthusiasm in team training. There are many hundreds of smaller, less active tactical teams which are faced with this problem every day.  

In trying to cope with morale and boredom issues, team leaders and training coordinators sometimes decide to opt for the “high-speed, low drag” tactics which are employed by a military special operations team or a larger agency’s full-time SWAT unit. For example, a team leader may enlist the services of a larger agency’s air asset to practice an aerial gunnery evolution for his team’s countersniper, or maybe to train on fast rope insertions for his entry team (even though he knows that, in reality, these options would never be available). I’ve observed this training labeled as “confidence building,” “adventure training,” or used to spark the interest in our operators. However, I have found that the usual eight to 16 monthly hours departments allow their teams to train could be used more wisely and realistically on basic tactical skills.

Reality Check

Let’s face reality here. As members of tactical units, we all, at one time or another, have the yearning for our teams to be busy like some of the country’s premier, full-time SWAT units. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of tactical teams nationwide are involved in a lot more training then they are in actual call outs. In most departments, the budget for SWAT training and equipment is meager at best and, sometimes, even cut for more “important” expenditures. We can’t all be on a department where SWAT is funded and staffed properly because it is an absolute necessity. That is just the nature of society and geography.   

Expertise is nothing more than mastery of the basics. I have listed categories of training which I think are important for teams to master. I also list categories of training which, for a number of reasons, may not be the best task(s) for your team to spend huge amounts of precious training time on as they may have little to no value in your unit’s real-world mission.

Chemical Munitions/ Flash Bang/ Less-Lethal Training

I think this training is an absolute necessity. The advent of the less-lethal option in the tactical arena cannot be ignored. The training of your team in not only the deployment of chemical munitions, but also working in the chemical munition (OC, CS, CN) environment is paramount. In the opposite extreme, diversionary devices also are extremely effective at disorienting (and sometimes injuring) operators who are not familiar with working with and around them. These are all important tools of the trade. Training in this category of tactical operations is important and necessary. As with anything involving tactical police work, you shouldn’t wait until your team is involved in a real confrontation to find out the results of employing this type of equipment.

Weapon Training

Weapon training may be the most important skill for an individual operator to master. Weapon training should be a constant for your operators. It doesn’t matter what your yearly allotment of ammunition is, you have to continue to make sure your team is extremely confident and competent with its weapons. Your weapon training has got to get away from standard on-line “paper capers.” Tactical team shooting must, at a minimum, include realistic team movement, such as when shooters are engaging targets within close proximity of their teammates.

Hostage Rescue/Barricaded  Gunman Training

This is an absolute necessity. These are the primary missions for which SWAT units are activated. Your team must put in the time to perfect the critical tasks associated with successfully handling these calls for service.

First Responder/Active Shooter

Be cognizant in training for the active shooter situation; historically, most of these operations are going to be handled by patrol elements prior to the arrival of SWAT. Unless turned into a protracted hostage rescue or barricaded gunman problem, a good base of knowledge of movement formations, etc. will be beneficial to your unit. However, don’t waste valuable time training officers on tactics and skills which they should be getting through normal in-service instruction.

Ballistic Shields/Body Bunkers

If you have shields as part of your team’s inventory and fail to train with them, you’ll be making a dangerous mistake. Some teams train without shields due to their cumbersome, fatiguing nature and then reach for them as fast as they can when they get a real-world call out. Your operators should be getting as much time as possible working with them and shooting from behind them. If your officer rescue tactics involve team members moving up to the downed officer/victim behind two or more shields, then by all means actually use the shields while training the tactic to simulate realism and to get a feel for the nature and limitations of the equipment.

Breaching

I have seen a lot of surprised faces on operators who have attempted unsuccessful manual breaches of reinforced doors, etc. because they have never done it in training. When the untrained breacher has his ram or hallagan tool operate in a less than perfect fashion in real time, they usually will panic and, in turn, endanger the entry team by acting in a “less than calm manner.” There is a certain “art” to using manual breaching tools, especially when it involves two officers working together when ripping back doors with a sledgehammer and hallagan tool. Rams are heavy by design and your operators need to be able to move quickly and safely with one. Rescue saws, sledgehammers, hallagan tools, bolt cutters, etc. are all designed to be used in a specific manner. Your officers should be taught the correct manner of when, how, and why they are applied to breaching. Don’t take this knowledge for granted. If your team has no explosive entry assets, and your agency has no intention of ever going to that type of technology for whatever reason, then don’t waste your training time simulating or self-training on the subject. Explosive breaching is highly effective, but requires very specialized training and equipment. If your agency does not want to make the absolute commitment to using explosive breach technology, then, for safety’s sake, stay out of that arena.

Force on Force

This is probably some of the best training you can have your team perform. A scenario-based problem involving the use of SIMUNITION® or Airsoft equipment has huge training benefits for your team members. This training allows them to see exactly what tactics will, and will not, work in a tactical environment. To ensure your force on force training doesn’t become unrealistic, make sure you have “good” bad guys playing the role of adversaries. What I mean by this is to train your opposing force actors (usually other tactical team members) to think the way a typical nontrained person would – and try to get away from thinking like a SWAT guy ( i.e., knowing when and how the team will operate). Make sure the “bad guy” element works within the scenario given. This training can have an adverse effect on your entry team if the scenario is unwinnable every time they attempt it. With the advent of affordable, reliable force on force equipment, such as the Airsoft technology, even a low budget, part-time team can make huge strides training and inoculating themselves against adverse body alarm reactions, etc. which are incurred during real-life gun battles. This training should be a high priority.

Combatives

A good, working knowledge of CQB, weapon retention and self-defense techniques is a requirement for every SWAT officer. I don’t think that entire training sessions should be dedicated every month to this, however. Having everyone of your team wearing a black belt or achieving an instructor rating in some specialized hand-to-hand art form is not necessary and is unrealistic for a smaller, lesser used team. If your team is allowed the standard eight to 16 hours a month to train, I would suggest your two hour block of team PT be broken down to include combatives and self-defense.

Water Operations

If your team is based in a landlocked location with few (or no) large bodies of water, such as lakes or ponds, surrounded by housing or structures where a situation might arise requiring tactical team support, then I don’t see the real need for this. Nothing more than basic drownproofing (in the case of an accidental fall into a swimming pool) by one of your operators is required.  If you are a team situated on the coastline, or do have large bodies of water in your jurisdiction which could come into play in a tactical situation, then, by all means, train up on maritime ops.

Protective Operations

Has your team ever been called to provide dignitary protection in the past or is your jurisdiction situated where high level politicians may commonly visit? These are questions which your team’s command staff will have to ask itself. I think all small teams should have at least a good working knowledge of protective ops in the case of courtroom security or if your unit is called upon to transport a dangerous criminal, such as an organized crime figure or outlaw biker, to another jurisdiction. Again, know the limitations of your team’s capabilities and the real-world chances of being tasked with this type of situation before investing large amounts of your limited precious training time on these skills.

Rappelling and Fast Roping

I don’t think there has been a documented case of a real-world SWAT mission which involved rappelling or fast roping in the last two decades. This training is good for confidence building and may assess an operator’s ability to negotiate heights and conquer personal fears, but I don’t believe huge amounts of time need to be spent annually on perfecting rappel and rope techniques for use in a tactical environment. Again, take full advantage of the limited time you have to train effectively for real-world encounters.

Low Light Operations

Here is where I see some teams dropping the ball in training. Statistics show that, if there is going to be some type of violent gun battle involving the police, it will be during the hours of darkness most of the time. I see too many part-time teams training entirely during daylight hours for whatever reason, usually to alleviate administrative scheduling dilemmas. It is imperative that teams get adequate training time in low light and nighttime training evolutions. Your team has to be skilled and comfortable operating in low light (or no light) situations.

Vehicle Assaults

Many hostage situations originate or culminate in vehicles. Teams need to be proficient in all forms of vehicle assault to include, but not be limited to, buses, cars, vans, SUV-type vehicles and any other means of transportation which may operate in your jurisdiction. If there is never a chance that your team would ever be charged with taking down a “goplat” or any other type of offshore structure, then leave that for the people who handle those types of specialized situations. Stick to the basics and master the vehicle assault circumstances your team will most likely encounter.

Wrap-Up

No matter how much we want things to be different, our SWAT teams aren’t all going to be as busy as, or be given the financial and training luxuries, an LAPD SWAT, NYPD ESU or other large department, full-time busy unit might enjoy. MOST of us are members of smaller, lesser used part-time teams, either single department, multijurisdictional, or regional teams, at best.  Our teams, which form the large majority nationwide, can’t afford to spend valuable training time trying to be something and perform in a way which we can’t or shouldn’t.  The need to spend training time increasing team safety, performance, and value are extremely important, lest the administration decide that the team isn’t worth the cost to fund. If you find yourself being a member of one of those hundreds, if not thousands, of lesser used, underfunded, part-time tactical teams across the country, strive to remain diligent in your training and work hard to master the basics on which your life and the lives of your teammates depend.

About the Author: Allan Garcia has been a police officer since 1988. Prior to that, he served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. He has been assigned to both his department and regionalized SWAT teams since 1991. Officer Garcia is a state and local level law enforcement firearms instructor, as well as a field training officer and a CPR/AED instructor. Officer Garcia has extensive field experience in both patrol and tactical operations and is a graduate of dozens of firearms and tactical schools to include offerings from Blackwater Training and Tony Blauer. He is a member of the NTOA and IALEFI. Officer Garcia enjoys reader comments and can be reached via E-mail at AJG3663@cox.net.