Citizens Academy Week 4: Tactical Unit

If it wasn’t for those orange earplugs, I would probably be deaf right now.

Week four at involved learning about the city’s elite tactical unit. We observed things from a sniper taking down soda cans at a great distance, officer or citizen rescues, how police would take down a suspect in a hostage situation and, with an extra loud boom, blowing off the doors.

In the last case, it’s a lot of training they have used, but have only had to see it in action one time when an armed robbery suspect had barricaded himself in a hotel room. When police heard shots go off inside the room, they quickly blew off the door to get inside. Unfortunately, the shots they heard were from the armed robbery suspect killing himself before police could take him into custody.

Since most of the evening was outdoors, I didn’t take very many notes, so if I quote the assistant commander of the Tactical Unit, Lt. Kevin Kober, I am sure to get a call that says, “I didn’t say that.” Kidding, kidding, Kober is a nice guy, but I am still not going to risk it.

When we watched the officer rescue scenario, one thing that Kober said stuck out in my mind. They have to get it right every time, he said, and there isn’t room for mistakes in real-life situations.

And so the Tactical Unit practices and trains. And then they practice and train some more.

Those on the unit aren’t forced to be on. They have to volunteer for the position and go through an intensive interview process where they see how each officer will not only perform at a high level, but also do it as a member of a team.

And family support is vital, Kober said. Officers sometimes don’t know when they will get called into a situation, and that means dropping kids’ birthday parties, Christmas functions and other things during their days off. But because those officers have the support and the blessing of their loved ones, they can go into situations with their training to help save lives or bring down a suspect, whether it is in a crisis situation or serving a search warrant in a drug buy bust.

Basically, it’s pretty awesome what these men and women can do as they train extensively to bring a high level of police work to the city.

As a reporter, I’ve only seen the full tact unit in action one time. It was earlier this year when For police, it had a happy, safe ending, and for the suspect? It found him on his way to jail facing felony charges.