The Washington State Tactical Officers Association (WSTOA) held a basic Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) training course on Naval Air Station Whidbey Island from March 14-19.

Thirty-two personnel representing 14 law enforcement agencies around Washington state participated in the training. WSTOA is contracted through the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission to conduct the training two to three times a year according to Steve Lobdell, WSTOA vice president of the Vancouver Washington Police Department, who has been instructing the course for more than 10 years.

“We try to stay updated the best we can on case law, tactics and critical incident debriefs that have occurred so we can feed that to [the students] and say this is why you should or shouldn’t do certain things,” said Lobdell. “Most of the instructors here have been on SWAT eight to 10 years, so we’re going on what we know. We learn firsthand from what went well and what didn’t go well, and we have to be willing to share that stuff.”

“It’s always nice when you have instructors that aren’t just teaching out of a book,” said Chief Master-at-Arms (SW) David Dooney, of NAS Whidbey Island security. “It’s good to hear from someone who’s been there, done that, wearing the T-shirt, so to speak.”

The course featured training on firearms, tactical movements, breaching, room clearing, chemical agents, scouting, victim rescues and entries through the use of classroom and hands-on instruction; including simulated real world situations. Physical training and teambuilding exercises were also in the mix.

The course concluded with the Renninger Run, an obstacle course named in honor of former WSTOA instructor Sgt. Mark Renninger, one of the four Lakewood police officers killed in a shooting Nov. 29, 2009, and was followed by a written exam.

According to Detective Ed Wallace, Island County Sheriff’s Office public information officer, the Sheriff’s office requested that WSTOA hold the training on NAS Whidbey Island with the bases approval. Holding the training in close proximity to their Coupeville office afforded them the opportunity to train all 11 of their hard entry and arrest team members, something their budget wouldn’t have allowed for had the training been held elsewhere.

The location also benefited NAS Whidbey Island’s Security Department by allowing them to send four personnel through the training.

“The training is taught by SWAT teams from the state, but it has the same fundamentals, techniques and tactics that we teach in our (Security Reaction Force-Advanced) classes,” said Dooney. “When we do our training days we’ll start rolling this in, and we’ll also probably incorporate this into our auxiliary security forces classes.”

The sheriff’s office and NAS Whidbey Island have an existing relationship and, with the inclusion of both groups in the course, they feel confident in each other’s participation in the future should the need arise for them to respond to an emergency situation together.