Editor’s Note: In PoliceOne “First Person” essays, our Members and Columnists candidly share their own unique view of the world. This is a platform from which individual officers can share their own personal insights on issues confronting cops today, as well as opinions, observations, and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. This week’s essay comes from PoliceOne Member Scott Barlow, a retired Police Chief who now serves as Deputy Director of the Hampton Roads (Va.) Criminal Justice Training Academy. Here, Barlow discusses the “Culpeper Model” for creating a joint/multi jurisdictional tactical team. Do you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members? Send us an e-mail with your story.
By Scott Barlow, Deputy Director
Hampton Roads Criminal Justice Training Academy
The heading of this essay goes right to the heart of the issue regarding Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) Teams, also known as Emergency Response Teams (ERT). As with most chief executive officers of a policing agency I stressed every time we had a team deployment. There are a number of reasons for this, the most prevalent one being that I have served as a Team Commander and know what can happen, most of the outcomes being negative.
There are a number of good reasons to have a SWAT Team, and quite a few more for not having one. I will proceed on the premise that most jurisdictions recognize the need for SWAT, even with the potential issues that always accompany having a team. There are a number of critical issues that must be addressed prior to establishing a team, or when fine tuning an existing team.
Resources
In our current world of dwindling resources even jurisdictions that have become accustomed to generous budgets and plentiful resources have been forced to reevaluate how they do business. Never having worked for such a jurisdiction I have learned the fine art of partnerships and secondary duties. There are very few jurisdictions that have the luxury of a full time single jurisdictional team. If the reader is fortunate enough to be from one of these jurisdictions, congratulations and you can probably skip this article.
For the rest of us it is time to be creative. My primary experience with SWAT began with a 450-officer agency. This part time team was comprised of an assault element, sniper/observer element, and perimeter element. This team had approximately 25 members, trained twice a month, and held a one week in-service training each year. The team was equipped with state of the art weapons, communications, and vehicles.
Fast forward to my more recent experience with a struggling team within a 45-officer agency. Realistically, regardless of how motivated your personnel may be, a smaller agency cannot sustain a SWAT Team, even a part time one. Of course, this is not what your motivated team members want to hear. This does not mean that having a team is out of the question, only that you need to be creative in forming your team.
The Culpeper Model
Culpeper is a county in Virginia with a small- to mid-size township within the county. The county is policed by an elected Sheriff and staff, while the town is policed by an appointed Police Chief and staff. There is also a variety of other criminal justice entities within the County/Town form of government.
The Culpeper Town Police Department created a team utilizing grant monies in 2004. The team was struggling to find time to train, and keep membership at a level where a team response was realistic. The team had four to five hard-core members that were unwilling to throw in the towel. These hard core dedicated members are critical to the success of any team.
The Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office had an existing team as well, prior to the Town police forming a team in 2004, and was facing similar circumstances. The S.O. had an existing team with a few hard core members who were also unwilling to give up on their team. The obvious solution to this problem was to combine both teams, to allow for one full sustainable team capable of responding to most critical incidents.
As with all tactical teams there are numerous issues to address. With a combined team there are even more. The intent of this article is to discuss many of these issues and concepts to overcome them.
Training
With most teams, training is the cornerstone of how the team will respond to a critical incident. Teams are called out very seldom, so practical experience is not easily obtained. Training must be basic (KISS: keep it simple stupid), conducted fairly often (twice a month would be nice, once a month a minimum), realistic (training for likely situations as opposed to the possible assault from al Qaida), and include all utilized special equipment.
Keeping training basic is something I learned early on. Observing my team train one day, as a team commander, I noticed five or six members of an assault team posting up a hallway in static positions playing what I began calling “tactical twister.” The team was so concerned about covering every conceivable angle that they were frozen in a vulnerable position in an open hallway. Our training had become so complex, no one, except perhaps the team trainer understood the basic movements.
It is far better to continue fluid movements with basic simple team techniques and concepts as opposed to freezing the entire unit for the fear of not covering every possible situation and angle. This is not to say that the team commander should force feed tactical concepts on the actual operators. As the team commander, I was not going into harm’s way, and did not want to force my ideology onto the team leaders and operators. But, neither did I want my team so confused as to the basics that they would hesitate as opposed to continue making decisions and moving.
We would all like to train more, and perhaps with a full time team you can. With a part time team all the operators have other full time positions. The agency administrator must balance the need for training with the resource allocation of each officer/detective. This is easier said than done. It has been said “you can do one thing well, or many things poorly.” It is up to you to determine when your agency is attempting to do too much and the basic services are suffering because of this.
Several years ago, while reviewing training plans for the upcoming year I was left wondering what our real mission was. Our upcoming training plans involved rappelling/fast roping from helicopters one week and then waterborne operations the next. I have no doubt that both of these scenarios could be needed at some point in time, but the real question is, are we so good at the basics that we have time for the less likely scenarios? Again, for the naysayers, I am not advocating that we never do the “high speed sexy stuff” but let’s not lose track of the basic mission.
How often do we train with full gear? I can only compare this to my background as a diver. When I let a good amount of time go by without diving, even though I have been a diver for many years, I am very uncomfortable with the equipment. When you are 100 feet underwater and inside a wreck, it is not the time to try and remember where your backup regulator is attached to your Buoncey control vest. It is critical that operators train at least 1/2 the time with full gear, and firearms.
Personnel
The selection of team personnel is critical to the success of the team, as well as the success of the agency. Again I risk irritating the reader when I remind us all that part time teams have limitations, which military teams, and full time teams from large agencies may not have. When you are drawing from several thousand officers your expectations for the team are at a different level than when you draw from one hundred officers, or less.
It should be clear to the reader that regardless of the size of your team or agency, standards cannot be ignored or compromised. Team members must meet fitness standards, training standards, weapons qualifications, and pass a psychological evaluation. If standards cannot be met, an agency is far better off not having a team than taking shortcuts. This is a very unpopular position, but one that must be taken for the good of the agency
Deployment
SWAT teams will always feel that they are underutilized. The common complaint is “if we do not deploy, how can we be ready for the big one?” The temptation to send the team out to get some practice can be a strong one, but it could also be a fatal one. This may work out as long as nothing negative occurs, but the risk far outweighs the benefits. SWAT teams do not function in non SWAT scenarios well, and to ask them to do so is unfair.
The litmus test is simple. If the team is deployed, and an expert (the former SWAT guy from out of town with a fancy briefcase) is reviewing why the team was utilized can the decision be articulated based on a number of factors. The history of the targets, type of weapons, location, and number of targets are just a few of the legitimate reasons for deployment of a team. The only acceptable reason for deploying your team is if a team is needed for the specific mission.
Jurisdictional Issues
The SWAT team is established, it is a joint/multi jurisdictional team and the team is looking for a job to do. You were very clever and crafted mutual aid agreements, and the jurisdiction is established. A non-participating neighboring jurisdiction is in a pickle; they do not have a SWAT team, and are asking for help. Your team commander is sure that mutual aid can cover them even though there is nothing formal in the mutual aid agreement for the requesting jurisdiction. You are a strong believer in assisting other jurisdictions and really want to help.
This is a reality check for agency heads. The intent of your joint/multi jurisdictional team is to provide enhanced services for the jurisdictions that formulated the team. Once you allow your team to become the quick fix for other jurisdictions it will be very hard to change that course. Ask yourself: how much liability and risk do I really want to assume? A joint/multi jurisdictional team is already a significant concern, adding every jurisdiction within driving distance quickly becomes unacceptable.
This dilemma was quickly addressed in the “Culpeper Model” by choosing the players carefully. The Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office and Culpeper Town Police are the only members of the joint team. This makes a very clean mutual aid agreement. The only jurisdiction the team has is within the county of Culpeper, which includes the town boundaries. Any request for the team outside jurisdictional boundaries must be approved by both the County Sherriff, and Town Police Chief.
Command
This is fairly simple with a single jurisdiction team, but more complex with joint and multijurisdictional teams. The “Culpeper Model” addresses this in a fairly simple fashion. The team is comprised of Command, Executive Officers, Team Leaders, and Operators. If the incident occurs within the County of Culpeper command passes to the Sheriff’s Office, if the incident occurs within the Town of Culpeper command is the responsibility of the Town Police. This sounds simple. The team consists of:
Two Team Commanders (1 Town, 1 County)
Two Executive officers (1 Town, 1 County)
Two Team Leaders (1 Town, 1 County)
Two separate complete teams (1 Town, 1 County)
On paper this is very clear but... what occurs if the call out is in the Town and the Town Team Leader is unavailable? What occurs if the team operators that respond are a mix of Town and County? In reality, the team can only function if the positions are interchangeable which can only occur with a high level of training and trust. It may very well occur where the County Team Leader is leading a mission with a mixed team that occurs in the Town, or vice versa. This does not alleviate the appropriate police executive of overall responsibility for the incident.
If this is not an acceptable risk, or if the relationships between each jurisdiction are not based on mutual trust, a joint/multi jurisdictional team may not be a good fit.
The Memorandum of Agreement (MOA)
This document is critical, and must address all the questions and issues that guide the team. When a critical incident where the team is deployed is evaluated by that “expert” the MOA is the guiding document and topics not addressed in the MOA are completely open to interpretation. The MOA must address at least the following:
• Parties involved
• Authority (state code that addresses Mutual Aid)
• Purpose (guiding principles team was formed)
• Responsibilities (Team structure and command)
• Emergency Management (Designating National Incident Management, NIMS as the appropriate mode of command for significant incidents)
• Funding (who pays for what)
• Workers Compensation
• Immunity clause if applicable
• Modification and Termination
It is highly recommended that your respective attorneys review the proposed MOA prior to signatures. This document is critical to the success of the team, and the career survival of those commanding the team.
As a chief or sheriff of a smaller- to mid-size agency, the decision to establish a SWAT team is a complex one. It is far safer to rely on the State Police to send their team when needed. Liability is transferred to the state, and local resources can be utilized for every day functions and tasks.
Unfortunately it is not quite this simplistic. State resources are rapidly disappearing and with them the luxury of depending on these resources is no longer status quo. Localities are experiencing more violence in the form of active shooters, work place rampages, angry citizenry, gangs, and drugs. It seems to this author that the need for SWAT is more critical than ever before. I do not feel comfortable abdicating my responsibility, sitting back and hoping that a deadly event can be addressed with outside resources. This is a betrayal of the trust the public places in us. Accurate, or not, the public has an expectation that local law enforcement can deal with the vast majority of critical incidents in a professional appropriate manner.
The only reasonable response to this difficult problem is by forming partnerships. Regardless of the local relationships and politics, law enforcement has an obligation to its citizens to work together to provide the best services possible. If this means stepping out of comfort zones and taking a risk so be it, because the alternative is to do nothing and hope for the “event” not to occur.
About the Author
Scott Barlow is currently the Deputy Director of the Hampton Roads Criminal Justice Training Academy (Hampton Roads Virginia). Scott retired as a Police Chief (Town of Culpeper, Virginia), and retired as a Police Captain (City of Newport News, Virginia). Scott is a recognized expert in UOF training and concepts, Tactical Teams, and Patrol Techniques. He has acted as an expert witness on numerous occasions and currently supervises a staff of expert trainers. Scott holds a Masters Degree in Government and Leadership Studies from Christopher Newport University.
