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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Marshal Clifford sets his sights on a victory.
Extreme Cops
The annual Best in the West competition allows SWAT teams to get valuable practice and have some fierce fun
By Pam Marino
'Bang!" A shot rings through the air. A six-man team of SWAT officers in full riot gear and gas masks makes its approach to the building in a straight line, rifles ready. Officers in the front of the line carry a battering ram. Inside are bad guys holding hostages. "Bam! Bam! Bam!" The door is broken down. More shots fired.
"BOOM!" A flash bomb thrown into the building (to confuse the suspects) blows up. The officers disappear inside. Muffled shouts follow as the officers race through the building. Suspects wait around every corner. Another flash bomb. Hostages are in danger. Every second counts.
Within a few minutes, the officers reappear at the rear of the building. A couple of the men are dragging hostages out the door. They hoist one, then two, up over a small wall.
Sweating and panting, the officers appear to relax a bit--apparently, they think the operation is over. They're wrong.
"You forgot a hostage--go back inside!"
The "hostage" is a lifesize toddler doll, hidden in the maze that serves as a building. Within seconds officers find it and bring it out, throwing it unceremoniously over the wall. The last of the seven-man team jumps over the wall. "Clear!" he shouts. The SWAT operation is officially over.
The operation was only a test, of course. The first two hostages were 185-pound dummies, just heavy-duty material sewn into a generic body shape and stuffed. But the ammunition was real. And the chance for injury to the officers was very real.
"This is live fire, not doctored ammunition or paintballs," says Santa Clara County Sheriff's Sgt. Luther Pugh.
As potentially dangerous as it is, the Live Fire Team Assault House test may be the only chance all year that these officers will get to practice, under realistic conditions, the skills necessary to save hostages' lives. The test is just one of seven events at the "Best in the West" SWAT competition, sponsored by the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office.
Officers from the Sunnyvale Public Safety Department's SWAT team participated this year, along with more than 300 officers from throughout California, Washington and Texas, in what amounts to a SWAT team Olympics. It is one of the most anticipated events of the year for these officers.
"It's billed as a competition, but more than anything it's really intense training for these guys," Pugh says.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Officers attempt to rescue 'hostages' as flash bombs detonate around them and the 'enemy' shoots live ammunition at them.
Most local teams do not get called out to many real-life situations, a fact officers says they are grateful for. With little live experience, however, the competition becomes an important training event.
"Everyone benefits," Pugh says, including teams, individual officers and the people they are paid to protect.
Sunnyvale's SWAT team commander, Lt. Mark Stivers, agrees.
"It's extremely valuable," he says. "And the reason behind that is the preparation." Members of the Sunny-vale team spend around 100 hours in personal time preparing for Best in the West, a fact that shows, since the team has consistently placed near the top in past years. This year, the team finished seventh out of 25 teams.
A team from Dallas placed first, with the Santa Clara Police Department and the Fremont Police Department finishing second and third.
The sheriff's office began sponsoring the competition seven years ago. At first the host team from the county's Sheriff's Emergency Response Team competed, but in the first few years SERT always finished as one of the top three winners. No one claimed favoritism, but there was concern that deputies had a home-field advantage. The Santa Clara deputies graciously stepped aside and played hosts only, taking on a mentoring role.
Smaller, less-experienced teams rely on what they can learn from the SERT members, and what they can observe watching other teams.
During the two-day competition, the San Jose Police Department SWAT team is on-call in the rare case a situation occurs in county-patrolled areas. Since only a portion of each city's or county's team is sent--Sunnyvale has a total of 17 members on its team--either enough members are left at home in case of emergency, or the municipalities make arrangements with neighboring SWAT teams.
With its unique practice course, nestled in the hills between oak trees and cow pastures above Highway 101 on the way to Morgan Hill, the county sheriff's department is one of the few agencies that could sponsor such an event, says Sgt. John Hirokawa, one of the organizers of this year's competition.
"Nobody in this county would have the facilities to put it on," he says.
The training grounds include at least three gun ranges, a couple of different obstacle courses, the Jungle Course--which takes officers down into a ravine through heavy brush, past booby traps and back up another hill--and the Live Fire Team Assault House, a structure made of recycled railroad ties shaped into a type of maze with rooms.
And then there is the dreaded Endurance Hill Run--a steep, forbidding dirt road that officers must run up pulling one of the 185-pound dummies along with them.
At 7:30 a.m. the first day of the two-day competition, teams take turns running up the hill and going over and under obstacles. The fastest time wins. It is not for the faint-hearted.
"Quite a few participants got to revisit their breakfasts," Pugh says.
"Everybody hates the hill run," Sunnyvale's Stivers says. But it can make or break the competition. "The teams win and lose based on how they do in the hill run."
There have been no women in the competition, officers say. Only a few women ever qualify to be on SWAT teams, because of the strenuous physical requirements. The 30-member SERT team does include women, but usually as technical support.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Marksmanship under competitive pressure is worth points.
Not every police or sheriff's department can send a team to the Best in the West competition, Hirokawa says. Only those departments with permanent, well-trained members can attend, in part because of the safety factor, since live ammunition is used in the competition.
Besides speed and accuracy, teamwork and communication are paramount to success in the competition--and in real-life situations, officers say.
On the Two-Man Combat Course, pairs of officers must run through an obstacle course together, helping each other over tall walls and up ropes. In one part of the course one officer puts his back to a tall wall and braces himself, while his partner climbs up on his shoulders to shoot targets on the other side of the wall.
Even with bullets and flash bombs, there have been no injuries beyond pulled muscles, bruises and scrapes. Santa Clara County SERT team members serve as safety officers on each of the courses. Protective eyewear is required even by visitors in some areas, and everyone has earplugs to muffle the sound of frequent gun fire and flash bombs happening on the different courses. Paramedics and a helicopter are on standby in case of a major emergency.
The event is free to the teams, thanks to the Maxim Corporation, which underwrites the event, and a couple of dozen other local contributors, including the Sunnyvale Costco store.
Officers interviewed say they are grateful for the community support. The training gives them a unique chance to prepare themselves, and to forge new relationships with competing teams. While teams take the competition very seriously, they also take the chance to talk with opposing teams on the sidelines.
"We may have to wind up working with them if there is a large operation," says Campbell Police Chief David Gullo.
Stivers and other officers say that, all in all, the long training hours and preparations for Best in the West are worth it.
"[The competition] is a lot of work, it's a lot of discipline and it's a lot of commitment," Sunnyvale's Mark Stivers says, "but that's what they do as members of a SWAT team."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
