A couple of weeks ago we learned how to search buildings, houses, and other structures. When criminals are hurting people or committing crimes, we must respond to stop them.
We began by learning about a technique called RAID. To preface, Jefferson County unfortunately has had several situations with active shooters in the recent past. In order to respond to these calls, specific training has been developed and implemented. This is part of the academy training we receive so we will have the necessary skills and abilities to combat these situations. Luckily, Deputy Joselyn is one of our academy directors and is currently on the Jefferson County Regional SWAT team. He and many of his comrades of SWAT shared their experience and knowledge with us over several days in an abandoned building that we were fortunate to use for training.
RAID is used when active shooters are known to be in buildings or other structures. We must stop these threats immediately to save lives. This technique consists of forming a group of four officers with a point officer, and left, right, and rear guards moving together. The officers in the RAID formation each have a specific task and also constantly protect one another as they search and clear rooms. Their guns are drawn as they search for bad guys. On the final day of this training we were able to carry guns with simunitions, which are basically bullets filled with paint. Some of the instructors were bad guys who had guns loaded with simunitions and we got to go through real potential scenarios. These included some situations in which we had to use lethal force with our simunitions. We also experienced getting shot with them and continuing in the gun fight.
The second part of this training was learning how to search buildings. Many times we will perform these in response to alarms and burglary calls and may be by ourselves or with just one other officer. These are done much slower because there is not an immediate threat.
