S.W.A.T. Drill
I live in Deer Park Texas, just about 12 miles southeast of Houston and about 45 miles north of the Galveston beachfront. We are basically your typical upper middle-class neighborhood, largely supported by all the oil refining and chemical manufacturing business on the Houston Ship Channel, and populated by many who work there. Our police department is top-notch. It's harder to get hired as a Deer Park cop than it is to get hired by the FBI or the Texas Dept. of Public Safety.
This may go a little long but I want to give you a little background info to help you get what this was like.
Our police chief is a powerful advocate of strong community relation and to that end he has set up what is called the Citizens Police Academy. It is a 12 week course that covers all aspects of police work. I went through it and I just can't describe how much I enjoyed it. During the first class we got to tour the jail. Subsequent classes we got to do things like tour the forensic department and property section, witness a hostage/SWAT exercise, an exercise where a guy is holed up in a building and the cops had to clear it. The guy that trains our cops in martial arts and safe effective take-down procedures came and put on a demonstration for us. We were supposed to go to the pistol range but something happened that it didn't work out and my class did not get to do that but it is part of the program.
Our class was addressed by detectives and we learned about crimes and police procedures in such matters as child abuse, Aggravated asualt, drunk driving, Etc. We got to do a little role playing and took turns being the person pulled over on a traffic stop. (Some of us already had some experience there, don'tcha know) And we also got to sit in the police car and work the emergency lights and siren and simulate talking on the radio. It was a hoot, I te'ya.
Every Thursday night from 7 - 10 PM we met and learned much of the inner doin's of the police department.
At the end of the course, the city threw us a nice graduation dinner at the country club and we were all given nice certificates and they put our picture in the paper too.
We also have what is called the Deer Park Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association, or DPCPAAA. This organization is for graduates of the police academy and we are a group of folks that volunteer to assist the cops in many ways that free up the time that the street cops have to spend on non-police duties. We make warrant calls, we direct traffic for parades and major traffic accident, we issue court summons for handicap parking violatons, We do fund raisers such as garage sales and BBQs to raise money for our group.
We were visited by Tim Miller of Texas Equisearch, the same folks that are involved in the search for the teenage girl in Aruba. We participated in a drill where we conducted a search and discovered the dead body of a missing woman (it was actually a fire department training dummy). We then went on to do a search for her car and found that too. I have now joined them and may someday be able to participate in a search should the need arise locally.
I just gave you all that as background so that you can have an idea of our organization and some of the things we do. Now I get to the part referred to in the title of the post.
Another thing we do as volunteers is to provide people to serve in emergency drills and police training exercises. I recently participated in a training exercise for the S.W.A.T team and I'll never forget it as long as I live. Let me just tell you up front that if you ever plan on taking a hostage and killing anyone, do yourself a huge favor and don't do it in Deer Park, Texas. It would be the worst, last mistake of your life, believe me I know!
This exercise was held in our local high school principal's office. Here's the scenario devised by the lieutenant over the S.W.A.T team. I played the roll of a local pediatrician, a leader in the community, a church going pillar of the town, highly respected in my personal and professional life and loved by all. My fifteen year old daughter has told my wife that for the past year I have been coming into her bedroom at night and...touching her inappropriately. Her mother sent her to visit an aunt that lives in Dallas so she could figure out the best way to confront me and find out the truth.
She braced me one morning and told me what our daughter had told her. We got into a heated argument And I got my pistol and shot her and killed her. My daughter had also told two of her friends about it and they, too, said that I had tried to molest them in the past. They had decided to go to the school principal and counselor and let the cat out of the bag.
Now, in a total panic, I race to the school in the hopes of doing some damage control. I plan to get the girls to recant their story and to persuade the principal and counselor to keep the whole thing quiet. I was most eager to protect my reputation. I enter the principal's office and the secretary tells me that he can't see me until later in the day. I panic and assault the secretary and throw her out of the office. I then barricade myself in the office with the principal, assistant principal, the councelor, and the two friends of my daughter who are joining in on the accusations.
Up to this point this has all been a typed out scenario. From this point forward everyone acted out their part. The lieutenant emphasized that we, the volunteers, make it as realistic as we could. She assured us that the S.W.A.T. guys were going to do just that, and that the more realistic we made it for them, the more it would help the exercise. The negotiator was new at this job and I was encouraged to give him holy hell. He later told me I did a very good job of it. We all gave it our best.
The parts of the principal, assistant principal, and councrlor were played by other members of the DPCPAAA and the two teenage girls are played by the daughters of the Lieutenant. When the action picks up we are all in the office and I'm holding a mock gun on my hostages. By now the secretary has called the police and informed them of her assault and that I have taken hostages. No one knows, at this point that I have killed my wife.
The S.W.A.T team is called out and they set up their communications trailer outside the school, in the parking lot. The principal's phone rings. It is the hostage negotiator.
Part of the emphasis of this drill is to give the negotiator some experience. The lieutenant has instructed me to make it as tough on him as I can, just as it would be in a real situation. I don't even answer for about 15 minutes. Then I answer and yell at him and tell him to leave me alone. I threaten to kill the hostages if the police don't leave. I demand that this all be kept from the media and that I be allowed to leave without police interference.
I frequently rant and rave and hang up on the negotiator. Alternately, I appear to be cooperative. I even release the counselor because she is diabetic and needs her insulin.
The negotiator continues to pump sunshine under my skirt and assure me that the situation can still end well. They still don't know I've killed my wife.
Finally, the police go by my house to talk to my wife and daughter. At that point, they discover my wife's dead body and assume that I am the one that has killed her.
The negotiator chooses not to advise me that they know what I've done. He continues to assure me that I can come out okay, that I only need to release my hostages and come out and talk with the police.
At this point the negotiator tells me that they are having problems with the phones. They want to toss a "throw-phone" inside the door to the building. I say no. Set it down outside the door and I'll bring one of the hostages to the door to pick it up. I threaten to kill the hostage if they try any tricks. I take the girl to the door while holding the mock gun to her head. When we get to the door to the outside I look through the window and see a guy if full S.W.A.T. regalia holding an M4 pointed at the door way. I tell the girl to open the door and get the phone and warn her that I'll kill her if she tries to run. I keep myself hidden but I do stick my hand and forearm out the door so the cops can see it.
We head back down the hall toward the principal's office and find the phone cord is too short. I leave it and go back to the principals office. We can hear the throw-phone ringing and then the principals phone rings. I answer and tell them that I will not sit out in the hall so they can shoot me through the window and then I hang up on him.
Note: this throw phone is not your typical telephone. Even when the handset is in the cradle, the cops on the other end can hear EVERYTHING that goes on around it.
I am now becoming very agitated. While I'm on the phone with the negotiator I begin yelling at the girls and threatening the principal, who is getting fidgety and acting like he wants to make a move on me.
This has all covered a span of time about 3 hours or so. The lieutenant is constantly moving back and forth between us and the communications trailer. She isn't telling them anything about us and she isn't telling us anything about them; just as in a real situation, developments occur slowly as time passes.
The lieutenant had laid her S.W.A.T. radio on the desk and we were talking about the drill when the radio squawked and you could hear one of the guys say to his seargent, "Why don't we just go ahead and kill this guy? We have other stuff to do today." The lieutenant jumped up and flew out the door. I kept telling myself, "This is only a drill, This is only a drill, This is....
When she returned a few minutes later she said the guys were chompin' at the bit and wouldn't wait much longer so we decided to bring our little play to it's ultimate conclusion about 2 hours earlier than we'd planned. The lieutenant laid out for us how the drill would end. Time to do the deed as they say.
I lose it big time and start waving the gun around and threatening to shoot everyone. One of the girls makes a dash for the door and I follow her out into the hallway and shoot her in the back as she runs for the door to the outside. The principal lunges at me to try and stop me from shooting anyone else. He's too slow. I turn and fire, shooting him in the head. I now decide to take my remaining hostages and move to another room up the hall and around the corner.
I move them out into the hallway. What I don't know at this point is that the S.W.A.T. team has made a "stick" entry into the building and is hiding in the conference room about 25 feet in front of me. Before I can get my hostages around the corner, the double doors burst open into the hallway and before I can blink my eyes, two S.W.A.T. guys are touching me in the chest with the muzzles of their M4s and yelling BOOM,BOOM,BOOM!!
Another guy takes the gun out of my had (if I'd had my finger in the trigger guard I would have gotten a broken finger...FOR REAL!) and yet another guy says, "well this guy's dead but I'm 'cuffin' him anyway. He then grabs my left hand, you know how they do it, spun me around shoved my arm up way past where it was designed to go and put me on the floor. I then felt a knee opon the back of my head and a knee in my back. I couldn't help but notice the feel the muzzles of numerous Glocks pressing painfully against me in several places, none of which I wanted to be shot.
They left me there while they continued to clear and secure the area. Eventually they came back for me and pronounce the drill completed.
You know, I've always wondered if it hurt to get 'cuffed, body-slammed and then picked up by your arm while it was 'cuffed behind you. In case you have wondered about it too, be advised that it DOES hurt.
Now the guys have me on my feet and ask me if I'm okay. "Hope we didn't hurt ya!" I say, "Oh no, I'm fine. Didn't hurt a bit." [Roll Eyes]
I te'ya, The adrenaline and testosterone were so thick in the air you could smell it. Drill or not, these guys were cranked up and it was real for them; and therefore, real for me too.
I'm now shaking from the experience and trying to regain my composure and the S.W.A.T. guys are all whapping the volunteers as well as eachother on the back and thanking us and yadda, yadda, yadda.
The lieutenant assembles every one in the conference room for pizza and soda and to critique the drill. It was a very disturbing experience. Made so by the realism, in acting out the play as well as the extreme intensity of the S.W.A.T. team. I would never let myself be in a real life situation like this, especially not in Deer Park!!
