SWAT Team

About the Butler County Regional SWAT Team

The SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team provides specialized tactical resources to an incident commander who has been confronted with a barricaded suspect or other situation requiring the use of advanced tactics and superior weaponry (e.g. high-risk warrant services, narcotics search warrants, hostage situations).

Butler County has a regional team, led by the Butler County Sheriff’s Office. Members of the team normally work in other assignments at their agency and devote time from their schedule to team training, in addition to team responses.

The Butler County Regional SWAT Team consists of members from several agencies within Butler County. They include:

• Butler County Sheriff’s Office
• Fairfield Township Police Department
• Liberty Township Fire Department
• Monroe Police Department
• Oxford (city) Police Department
• Oxford Township Police Department
• Trenton Police Department

Vehicles

The two armored vehicles for use by the SWAT team are housed at the Butler County Sheriff’s Office. One of them is a Lenco BearCat purchased with a grant. The vehicle is not only armored for assault-type situations, but is also equipped with its own oxygen supply for use in hazardous materials situations. Those in the vehicle will be equipped with oxygen tanks, but will plug into the vehicle’s supply while inside to conserve their supply and will then disconnect to exit and deal with the problem.

Team Positions

The positions are broken down as follows:

• Critical Incident Manager- Captain R. Greer
• Team Commander- Lt. John Sons
• Two Assistant Commanders
• Three team leaders- two entry teams and one negotiator team
• Three assistant team leaders – two entry team and one negotiator
• Team personnel including:
  • twenty-six entry team members
  • four snipers
  • eight negotiators
  • three tactical medics
  • seven members of the regional HAZSWAT (hazardous materials SWAT) team

In 2012

Last year, the City of Oxford Police Department, Oxford Township Police Department, and the Monroe Police Department all joined the regional SWAT team.

The Butler County Regional SWAT team responded to a total of eleven (11) callouts during 2012. The team responds to various situations including barricade and hostage/barricade situations, search warrants for Criminal Investigations and Drug Investigations, fugitive apprehensions, and search warrants for other agencies outside of Butler County. In 2012, the team responded to a total of eight high-risk narcotics search warrants for the BURN regional narcotics unit, two barricade situations, and one high-risk eviction.

The team trained a total of 132 hours in 2012. Training this year included a 40-hour block of instruction conducted by Louisiana State University on Advanced HAZSWAT Tactics for Weapons of Mass Destruction type incidents. Annual Training included:

• Vehicle/bus assaults
• Dynamic entries
• Stealth tactics
• Hostage rescue
• Barricaded subjects
• School crisis/active shooter response
• Rappelling
• Unarmed self-defense
• Edged weapon defense
• Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) monitoring devices
• Physical agility
• Man-down rescue