Gilroy
– Members of the Gilroy Police Department competed against 17
elite SWAT teams from around the world last week, and came away
with eighth place.
GPD’s Special Operations Group earned a spot at the two-day,
invitation-only Original SWAT World Challenge after finishing
second at a local competition held in South San Jose in
September.
By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – Members of the Gilroy Police Department competed against 17 elite SWAT teams from around the world last week, and came away with eighth place.
GPD’s Special Operations Group earned a spot at the two-day, invitation-only Original SWAT World Challenge after finishing second at a local competition held in South San Jose in September.
On April 1 and 2, the team ran, climbed and crawled in the Nevada desert outside Las Vegas. It was the first time GPD was invited to the world-level competition, where officers went head-to-head with SWAT teams such as Germany’s GSG-9 Counter-terrorism team – which placed first – Los Angeles Police Department’s SWAT team, and Dallas Police Department’s SWAT team.
“It’s always nice to know that we’re doing things the way we should be,” said Sgt. Kurt Svardal. “Our team is good and solid.”
The challenge pitted the teams against each other in seven live-fire events, in which officers competed in full gear. Among the events were a tunnel challenge in which officers rescued a dummy from a pitch-black tunnel using only infrared detectors; a sniper event; and a tactical traverse obstacle course in which officers negotiated various ropes courses and shot at targets.
The tactical traverse “wasn’t really practical as something we do every day. But working as a team, we have to do that every day,” Svardal said.
In another event, called the three-gun challenge, three teams of two officers demonstrated their skills with either a shotgun, rifle, or hand gun. The three-gun was Gilroy’s best event: The group took third place, behind the German team and a SWAT team from Fayetville, NC.
Nothing offers so useful training as competitions like this, Svardal said. Not only did every event make a point of getting competitors winded before testing their skills, but by pitting teams against each other, it brought out the best in the GPD, he said.
“You can’t create real life for SWAT training, but going out and having that added stress of a competition is great,” he said. “You want to push yourself because you want to be the best.”
Members of the GPD team included officers Brian Dutton, Pedro Espinoza, Ray Hernandez, Doug Remmick, Paco Rodriguez and Pat Sullivan; Cpl. Erik Tiner; Sgts. Kurt Ashley, Greg Flippo, Noel Provost, and Kurt Svardal; and Assistant Chief Lanny Brown.
Gilroy was the smallest agency at the challenge, and one of only a few teams there that operate on a part-time basis.
Guaranty RV Center loaned the Special Operations Group team a recreational vehicle for the trip, which came in handy when officers wanted to escape the desert heat, Svardal said. Some members of other teams climbed aboard to receive an IV drip after becoming dehydrated.
Whether Gilroy would return to the world SWAT challenge again if invited is unclear, however. The team and its leaders were out of town for a full week – two days for travel, two days for competition, one day of practice, and one day of classes on topics such as field medicine and training issues. The officers’ trip was paid with training funds, but the impact on the department was noticeable.
“Having 13 people gone, that took the entire agency to come together and pull our weight,” Svardal said.
