Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier
The Los Altos Police Department's SWAT team practiced breaching and forced entry techniques by breaking into Mountain View High School's administration building last week. The building is set for demolition this summer, giving them the rare opportunity for this hands-on training. The officers were trained by two Santa Clara Police SWAT team members.
Town Crier Staff Writer
The scheduled demolition of Mountain View High School's administration building provided the local SWAT team a rare opportunity last week to practice, hands-on, how to occupy a building during crisis situations.
The Los Altos Police Department's eight-member SWAT team met with two police officers from the Santa Clara Police SWAT team for a general training session that involved breaking windows, ramming doors open and occupying rooms of the building before its scheduled demolition this month as part of the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District's construction plan.
Sgt. Tom Connelly of the Los Altos Police Department said last week's training was the first opportunity for the Los Altos SWAT team to practice breaching and forced-entry techniques firsthand since the team formed nearly two years ago. He said the Santa Clara SWAT team - SWAT is an acronym for "special weapons and tactics" - hasn't had such an opportunity for more than four years.
"It's rare ... schools are very rare," Connelly said about the opportunity.
Connelly said the school-site training provided police officers the opportunity to experience the idiosyncrasies common to school buildings, including smoked windows, which make it difficult to see inside rooms; varying window materials, including Plexiglas and safety glass; and doors that open out. He said these characteristics make it more difficult and dangerous to address a critical incident in the buildings.
"Schools are hard. They pose some problems," said Santa Clara police officer Don Lazzarini who helped lead the training session. "You need to have a fail-safe plan to get in. You can't say, 'I think I can get in.' It must be guaranteed 100 percent."
Dressed in 30 pounds of full SWAT gear - helmets, goggles, gloves, knee and elbow pads, vests, black boots and protective hoods - the officers took turns breaking windows with a halligan bar, a tool similar to a crowbar.
The unique school characteristics that Connelly and Lazzarini spoke about became apparent at the start of the training when officers encountered safety, plastic and real glass windows side-by-side, with the latter shattering and slicing through an officer's gloves. He had to be treated at the hospital.
Lazzarini said it's vital to have a school's blueprint and classroom keys. He said police should know where school officials plan to take students out and where they plan to hold them inside. These measures can save time if a bomb threat, kidnapping or shooting occurs, he said.
Connelly said the police department and local school districts have been working together more to coordinate their response in emergency situations since the shooting in a Colorado school earlier this year.
Connelly said high school district officials invited the SWAT team to train at Mountain View High.
"It's important to get on the same page, so if we're in a situation, (the school) knows how we are going to react, and we know how they are going to react," Connelly said.