Have you ever seen a police department's Special Response Team in action? These are the guys dressed in black with helmets, face shields and very large weapons. I have seen them up close and they are very intimidating, not good if you are a criminal.

Have I been a hostage? In a manner of speaking. I belong to a volunteer group that works with my local police department. One of our "perks” is to take part in scenarios, an exercise that simulates a real-life situation. In this case, yes, I've been a hostage.

So what exactly does a Special Response team do? They are a very specialized and important branch of the police department. They are called out on hostage situations, armed barricade incidents, high risk search or arrest warrants and any crisis situation deemed necessary for use of a specialized unit. They can also be utilized in the event of a suicidal individual, civil disorder, natural disasters, riot control, bomb threats and surveillance. Essentially, they respond to any incident that requires extra resources, equipment and training that cannot be handled by traditional police response.

Tactical teams require members to go through intense and specialized training. It is a voluntary position, but officers that are interested must pass a rigorous assessment to be considered. Often this includes, but may not be limited to, an oral review board, obstacle course, firearm proficiency and working various scenarios.

Teams will conduct biweekly or monthly training exercises in hostage rescue, dynamic forced entry, covert or stealth clearing of a building, weapons training and, of course, the scenarios.

Teams also attend outside training course offered throughout the country. They learn and update their training in areas such as shoot/no shoot decisions, securing a perimeter, threat recognition, officer down situations, building searches and the use of less lethal weapons.

To keep their training fresh, they will hold one or more scenarios per year. I'll walk you through the first one I was involved with. The scenario was a hostage situation at an office building. One person was down, the number of hostages and suspects was unknown. This is all the information the team is given. The team was comprised of officers that were trying to become members. In this case, we had two suspects and four hostages. Our suspects were police officers on the actual team. I was the last hostage remaining, so I had a complete and inside view of how a tactical team works. My captors found a room with a view of the front door so we could watch the progress of the team. It is a very slow, arduous process. The officers have no idea what they will find or wh

ere, so they move at a snail's pace. In this case it took them forty five minutes just to enter the building!

Once inside, the slow task continues. We had two hostages hiding in different rooms. When a team finds a hostage or a hostage is released, they must treat them as suspects until they are positive they are not. Once they discovered both of the hidden hostages, they moved on. Next up was to release a hostage. She ran screaming down the hall, only to be ordered to stop, turn around, put her hands on her head and then walk backwards toward the team. Then they gather what information they can as to what yet awaits them. Now we were down to me as the remaining hostage. My captors decided they would "put” me around a corner, threatening to harm me. This was my first close up view of the team. To say the sight before me was intimidating is an understatement! The team was dressed head to toe in black, their body armor making them look bigger and even more imposing. They were armed with high power weapons and were in very close proximity to one another. I wanted to turn around and tell my captors, "Boys, you need to just give it up now.”

This tactic didn't work, so my captors and I retired to a room and waited. And waited. Suddenly, the door burst open with men yelling, "get down!” and "bang!”, this last because they weren't even allowed paint bullets. I was tackled by one team member in order to get me out of the line of fire. And, just like that, it was over. It happened so fast, I didn't have time to think. That is exactly what they were meaning to do. The element of surprise. Congrats all around, the remaining hostage is safe!

Following such a drill, the team assembles and discusses what went wrong, what they did right and how anything could have been done differently. After experiencing this drill and the others I have been in, I know that all of the team's hard work has paid off. I feel so much safer knowing there are men such as this in the event of a true life situation.

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