LVMPD Intermediate SWAT Course

[KevinB]

AAR LVMPD Intermediate SWAT School.

Mil/LE Only 5 day class. 48 Students (7 departments and 3 branches of service, spanning from New York to San Diego)

I’m not going to explain any of the SOP/TTP’s

Day1: Classroom at LVMPD HQ – class started at 0800, and was a brief intro of students and where we came from. As well as some of the instructors, usually all of them, but apparently one of the teams had had a busy night. LVMPD SWAT does north of 500 operations a year, so they are a busy team. They are a very humble team, being honest where they had identified issues, and admitted where they were inexperienced. All the officers where well experienced and some had spent the majority of their career in SWAT. Their dedication and motivation was clear throughout the entire course. They have two full time teams that total around 32 full time SWAT officers
An overview of all the course material was done. Subjects covered in the course where shown by the instructions with explanation’s/theory and demonstrations (video and white board).
Search Warrants
Hostage Rescue
Vehicle Assaults
Bus Assaults
Active Shooter
Down Officer Rescue
Explosive Breaching
Mechanical Breaching
Ballistic Breaching
Containment Teams
Rappelling

Day 1 ended at 1645, the course was broken into 4 12 man teams, and the course would spend the next 4 days on the LMVPD Range Complex.


Range Days(Day 2-5):
I was in Team 1 with 9 from my department and 3 West Coast SEAL’s. Instruction was broken into 4 2hr blocks a day, so each group would round robin the activities.
We started with Search Warrants in the LVMPD House (they have two shoot houses on their range complex). We got off to a later start due to the Navy having issues with getting their weapons and ammo out of Nellis AFB. LVMPD did a walk thru talk thru on their methods of conducting Search Warrant Entries. We then rolled into doing it – from unopposed to opposed with UTM guns and UTM blanks – then paper target live.
We then rolled over to Rappelling – same format for explanation, but the SEAL’s opted out and so we only had 9 folks and got a lot of reps. Standard, Aussie, Inverting and Tying off was done. Jason Falla (RedBackOne) is one of my department Entry Team Sgt’s – and he conducted a few advanced methods, as well to the enjoyment of the LVMPD guys (the slack jump drew a lot of attention).
Active Shooter Drills in the LMVPD/FBI shoot-house. It was done in true EDI methods as was all the training (for those not familiar with EDI, it is Explain, Demonstrate, Imitate). This was done with UTM guns and UTM blanks. LVMPD SWAT personnel conducted their AS drills and used personnel from their Intelligence and Gang units as Role players.
From there we moved to the Range and did a number of shooting drills, starting with a Bill Drill. In this the Range Staff made efforts to get Police from a Square Range qual concept to a fluid gunfight. Rather than slow fire from a given yard line, most shooting was on the move, front/back/lateral, and serpentine movement was used. At the end, I prodded Jason to give an example of the RB1 Operator Readiness Test. Then everyone shot it, as we had finished earlier than expected.

Day Three
Once again we did the 4 2hr blocks of instruction.
Hostage Rescue, Vehicle Assaults, Downed Officer Rescue – and split block of Shield Shooting, and Containment Drills where on the menu for Wednesday.
During one of the Downed Officer Drills, I got ejected from the Tahoe we were using as the rescue vehicle (I was one of the carbine armed cover officers on a 5 man rescue drill) – if I had not been all geared up I probably would have suffered some injuries –as it was my pistol, holster, helmet and Crye gear took the brunt – the elbow pad ensured my right elbow (trying to protect the carbine) was not shredded against the pavement. The grip of my M&P got a bit abraded, and my BFG Plate Minus got some road rash – but I bounced up laughing – so all good (our driver was a little excited).
Day 4
Same 2hrx4 format was used with Bus Assaults, Hostage Rescue, Explosive Breaching, and a Shooting Competition. As well as a course photo was taken at lunch
Day 5 – I missed Day5 as I needed to get back to NoVA/DC – but there was several scenarios using the methods that where taught earlier – as well as a shoot off for the course top shot.


Somewhere I missed their deliberate clearance technique which was teamed with Dog operations.

It was an interesting course, a lot of things they had learned the hard way where passed on and the SWAT team was exceptionally friendly. They allowed course (LE) personnel to attend a number of their raids over the course of the week as observers. Furthermore what I found exceptionally impressive and showing their professional nature was when presented with other options, they took interest and made plans to test them out on their team.
I had hoped for more FoF and Live Fire, but in a 5 day course I can appreciate that there where limitations, as well as some attending personnel where not SWAT folks but patrol officers – and when you get a diverse number of personnel things need to be done slowly and methodically – and we just did not have time for more.

[Dr. No]

Do they publish their schedule for this training anywhere? I'd love to make that happen.