HARRISON COUNTY, W.Va. — A week-long SWAT training concluded Thursday with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and three Harrison County law enforcement agencies.
Deputies of Harrison County Sheriff’s Department and officers of Bridgeport and Clarksburg Police Department completed 40 hours of training with the LASD over four days this week.
“This is a combination of everything we’ve learned over the years out in LA of different things and tactics that have worked for us,” LASD Deputy Sheriff Chris Smelser said. “It’s more of a sharing of information than me standing here teaching. We kind of share ideas, explain to them what works for us, and see if they can take some of those ideas and have them work for them.”
This was the second year that Clarksburg and Bridgeport Police Departments took part in the training, joined this year by the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department.
“The SWAT teams train each month,” Harrison County Sheriff Robert Matheny said. “Sometimes it’s local training, we have trainers in house, or sometimes one of the members share their expertise with the team and they do practical training.
“But we like, at least once a year, to have a week-long training. It refreshes guys as far as the basics, but they also learn new and improved techniques.”
Each agency contributed $5,000 to bring the LA Sheriff’s Department to Harrison County.
“Which still saved a lot of money because we didn’t have to pay room and board. All of the departments got to stay in their own residences. We didn’t have to for any per diem cost or anything,” Clarksburg Police Chief Robbie Hilliard said. “It was just the cost of the training and some overtime to compensate for manpower on shifts.”
Smelser is also a part of the National Tactical Officers Association, for which these types of trainings are held regularly. He leads similar week-long trainings annually, as well as about six to eight smaller training sessions each year.
While each training provides valuable new tactics and information, they also help law enforcement to keep their existing skills sharp.
“Keeping them sharp is the hardest,” Smelser said. “Where I’m at, if I’m gone from my team for a month, my skills deteriorate a little bit, so we have to get back on board and just keep them sharp. It’s not always physical, and it’s not always these big scenarios that’s needed, but it’s the little things they’re going to do on the side that’s going to help them, too.”
Smelser said that law enforcement officers are required to maintain so many skills that are perishable if not used regularly.
“I understand budgets are tight and some are small areas, so I’m trying to get them to visualize too and constantly train their mind,” he said. “You can’t always put yourself in these scenarios because this isn’t that cheap.”
Hands-on training scenarios from the week ranged from high-risk warrants to baracade situations.
“So what we’re doing is just talking things you need to do on the front half of a warrant service so that it’s safe for everyone involved, up to and including the suspect themselves,” Smelser said. “Then we just put them in a real-life scenarios that we try to control and base off of experience that we’ve had in LA.”
Hilliard said officers were also trained in downed officer scenarios.
“They actually had downed officer recovery where if an officer goes down how to get to that officer safely and bring him out of the danger zone to get him to medics,” Hilliard said. “Also, for a regular citizen if they’re pinned down somewhere, for officers to get to that subject and bring them out to safety.”
Larger agencies such as the LASD have the experience to provide that necessary training, based on the number of and types of calls they respond to. Matheny said the LASD has roughly 280 callouts each year, compared to Harrison County’s “handfull.”
“Which we’re very happy about that, but they see a lot more things and they can share that with us. They can share what works and what doesn’t work,” he said. “Of course, we have our own policies, and we have our own procedures and way of doing things, but it never hurts to have a fresh perspective on different things.”
While the training and differing perspectives are beneficial, Matheny said the greatest benefit is working together with the other departments.
“Because let’s face it, if there’s a major incident at one of the schools or any major incident in the county, all three teams are going to be working together anyway, so it’s a great opportunity to practice together,” he said.
The county recently had such an occurrance, when a manhunt ensued from a carjacking in Columbus, Ohio.
“And everybody came together and worked fine because this is not the first time that the departments have worked together,” Matheny said. “They work together every day on shifts back and forth.”
While the departments were able to handle that altercation without any resulting injuries, these trainings assure that officers are adequately prepared for those types of events.
“Our standard is we’re never good enough, and we want to be better at what we do,” Matheny said. “If you fail to prepare, then you’re preparing to fail. That’s kind of our attitude.”