Team Trains In New Subdivision Home
By Rick Brewer, The Record (Stockton, Calif.)
TRACY, Calif. -- Three deeply resounding knocks pounded the front door.
“Tracy police. We have a search warrant. Open up,” an officer bellowed in his baritone voice.
Momentary silence. Then, a band of heavily armed police officers entered the 4,000-square-foot Lourence Ranch model home in east Tracy and tactically fanned out in groups of three. One searched the updated kitchen with its slab tile flooring. Another took the cream-colored hallway. The last broke right toward a bedroom.
The five-bedroom, 31?2-bath Travertine model was not inundated with drug dealers or a cache of weapons. Neither was a hostage situation under way. But the Tracy Police Department treated the house as if all those conditions applied.
Ten members of the Special Weapons and Tactics team practiced deployment techniques Friday morning inside the large Standard Pacific Homes model to rehearse the issuing of high-risk warrants.
“Whenever we get a good example of a situation in the real world, we like to identify the things we did well and the things we need to work on,” said Sgt. Ivan Pineo, SWAT team leader. “Then we do so some classroom training and get out to a site for some tactical training.”
The real-world scenario that forced Friday’s exercise played out about 7:30 a.m. July 30, when SWAT team personnel were forced to enter the rural home of Kevin Roy Henshaw to serve an arrest warrant. Tracy police suspected methamphetamine was being manufactured and distributed at the home in the 27000 block of South Corral Hollow Road.
In addition to 3 ounces of meth, five firearms were found in the house, Officer Joel Petty said. They found a loaded gun hidden between bedsheets and a .45-caliber pistol taped underneath a nightstand. They arrested Henshaw at the scene.
No shots were fired, and no one was injured during the raid.
“We have to be up on our tactical entries. If we let that slip, then we won’t be as prepared for a real event as we need to be,” Petty said. “Everyone needs to know what they’re doing.”
That includes two specialized dispatchers, Chasity Scialabba and Michele Elmore. In real situations, they provide mobile communication and written documentation of events as they unfold. Friday, they helped serve as hostile ne’er-do-wells, forcing SWAT team members to subdue and restrain them -- thus reducing available personnel for further search and cover.
“It’s cool to get a sense of what you do on the inside,” Scialabba told the group. “We don’t get to see this normally.”
SWAT teams don’t often train in $700,000 model homes either. But Standard Pacific, which has developed homes in Tracy for three decades, encourages the occasional use of its models.
“We wouldn’t build in a city that isn’t committed to public safety, so we have no problem letting them use our homes,” said Jim Berson, vice president of sales and marketing. “Our residents appreciate well- prepared law enforcement.”
Model homes serve at least two important SWAT objectives.
First, the buildings are unoccupied. The sales office was closed Friday morning, allowing Tracy police a good two hours’ access before would-be home buyers began walkthroughs.
Second, the houses are filled with furniture. SWAT personnel often train in empty structures, but homes typically have couches, beds and lamps around which officers need to maneuver.
“We like to work with the clutter, because a real-world house can be somewhat overwhelming if we’ve done too much work in empty spaces,” Pineo said. “The last thing we want is to be overwhelmed.”