Managing Editor
About once a week, some of the 35 men on the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office SWAT team strap on almost 50 pounds of high-powered gear and head to a critical situation.
While they might be facing dangerous people with big guns, the Special Weapons and Tactics teams are well prepared.
“Most of the bad guys are more afraid of us than we are of them,” said Sgt. Jackson Short, a 10-year member of the SWAT team and a patrol officer when not on a call or in weekly training.
Short and detectives Lee McCranie and Matt Doherty brought gear and information to the Southside Business Men’s Club on Wednesday.
They told the club that SWAT officers are called to action in seven primary circumstances.
The SWAT teams serve high-risk search or arrest warrants to armed and violent subjects. They respond to potential suicides barricaded in a building or perched on a bridge.
They work covert surveillance, going undercover to follow suspects to amass enough evidence for a warrant.
They also stake out businesses to thwart robberies and they protect visiting dignitaries when protection is needed.
For example, pre-9/11, a Catholic bishop from the Middle East who was a target of Osama Bin Laden visited with no protection. The SWAT team served the purpose.
Short said ultimately Sheriff John Rutherford decides who warrants protection.
The SWAT structure is led by a commander, a lieutenant, seven sergeants, 35 officers and five medics. When Short was asked if women were on the SWAT team, he said no, but that only two women tried out in 20 years and they didn’t pass the physical fitness standards.
The SWAT officers range in age from 25 to 40 years old, he said. Officers are chosen after a series of tests. First, they must be off employment probation. Second, their work history must be good. Then there’s a three-day evaluation, during which applicants are tested mentally and physically and “we mess with their sleep patterns,” said Short.
If applicants make it that far, they then attend a five-day school. After that, however, “selection never ends. You have to keep up,” he said.
SWAT members work among five teams, and all train together one day a week.
The members are on call all the time while working their regular jobs. Short, for example, is a patrol officer in Zone 1, which covers the Springfield area and East Jacksonville, bordered by Interstate 95 and the St. Johns and Trout rivers.
When called out, two or three teams could be called at any one time, for up to 12 to 14 hours at a time. Fresh teams must be ready.
They can use lethal weapons. Those include the AR-15 family of rifles, Glock 22 handguns, Remington 700 sniper rifles and shotguns, although those aren’t used as often because of the possibility the pellets will spread.
The less-lethal weapons, designed to incapacitate the target, include the Remington 870, which shoots beanbag cartridges. Those, said Short, are most used on dogs and usually in drug searches.
The drug suspects, he said, “are guys living the lifestyle” and “they have to have pit bulls.”
The weapons can slow a pit bull, which Short said is only protecting its property. “It’s not its fault” the owners might be criminals, he said, although if one or two shots don’t work, they take further action.
Other less-lethal weapons include 40mm Sponge Rounds, Tasers, chemical agents and distraction devices that, when the pin is pulled, flash a bright light and make a loud noise.
Team equipment includes the BEAR, or “Ballistically Engineered Armored Response“ vehicle; the critical incident vehicle; night vision equipment on helmets and rifles; thermal imagers that allow officers to detect heat; and “explosive breaching” to open doors without having to ram them.
The teams train at a “live fire shoot house” made possible by federal funding. The building allows the officers to practice with live rounds in a building designed as a house. The Kevlar walls are covered with plywood that is replaced as needed.
Asked what weapons the bad guys carry, Short said many have AK-47 and SKS assault rifles, usually illegally purchased or bought through a straw purchase, in which someone else buys weapons for use by the criminals.
According to the Sheriff’s Office website, the SWAT team is part of the Homeland Security and Narcotics/Vice Division, which operates under the Department of Investigations and Homeland Security.
When asked if the SWAT team had much turnover, Short was brief. “Not much.”
356-2466