SWAT team does drills in high school

    Members of the Washington Police Department and Sheriff?s Office participated in SWAT team drills in the high school Monday afternoon. The group spends approximately eight hours every month preparing for things like high-risk search and arrest warrant executions and hostage situations. The team selected the high school because of the large number of rooms in the building and because school is not in session this week.

    Police officer Shawn Ellingson was the SWAT team leader for the police department and put together a few scenarios that the team acted out. Ellingson said one of the maneuvers the team worked on Monday was going into a room with a gunman and identifying the perpetrator. He said the officers practice filing into a room with each team member fulfilling a different function.

    ?The first guy into the room may turn right, and the next guy will turn left,? said Ellingson. ?The first guy may be able to eliminate the threat, or it could be one of the other guys who follow him. In those situations, we also work to ensure that we don?t get in each other?s line of fire.?

    Police Chief Greg Goodman, who attended the drill, said the team goes over a number of different scenarios that SWAT teams around the country have had to encounter.

    ?One of the things we prepare for is having an active shooter in the school,? said Goodman. ?There are all kinds of different exercises you can run in this building because of the number of rooms.?

    The drills conducted by the Washington SWAT Monday were attended by seven city police officers, four county deputies and the Chief of Police in Keota. Goodman said the Washington SWAT team has been together since 2001.

    The team does all it can to make the drills realistic. Team members dress just as they would if the maneuver were real, and they also carry guns, although not ones that fire bullets.

    ?When we do drills, we alter the barrels of our guns so that they can only fire paintballs,? said Ellingson. ?The core of the gun is left intact, so that part is still real.?

For the full article, see the Dec. 29 print edition of the Washington Evening Journal.