SAN JOSE
– After two intense days of staged hostage situations, sniper
simulations and other SWAT-type drills, the Gilroy Police
Department’s Special Operations Group placed sixth out of 17
law-enforcement agencies in the 13th annual Best in the West
competition, put on by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s
Emergency Response Team.
SAN JOSE – After two intense days of staged hostage situations, sniper simulations and other SWAT-type drills, the Gilroy Police Department’s Special Operations Group placed sixth out of 17 law-enforcement agencies in the 13th annual Best in the West competition, put on by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team.
Competition was incredibly tight, said GPD Assistant Chief Lanny Brown, who participated with the Gilroy team in Thursday and Friday’s events.
“In the first event, the obstacle course, 10 teams placed within five seconds of each other,” Brown said.
Brown said he thought this year’s teams showed a higher overall caliber of quality than in past years.
As for his own team, Brown said, “We were very consistent.”
The seven events were an endurance course, a sniper course, a two-person assault course, a “jungle trail,” a combined-weapons course, a shotgun course and – perhaps the highlight – a teams assault course. In this last course, called the “live-fire house,” teams dynamited the door of a building and – using live ammunition – went inside to identify and shoot “criminal” targets and rescue a real-weight “hostage” dummy.
The top team this year was the Sunnyvale Department of Public Service, with the San Jose Police Department coming in second and the Campbell Police Department third. The highest-scoring individual officer, or “top gun,” was Tim Pashoian of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Police.
The competition, which was closed to the public due to liability concerns, was held at the Sheriff’s Range in South San Jose.
