Oxford’s Special Response Team merged into the regional Special Weapons and Tactics unit with city council action in December and the addition of those officers brought the county numbers back up to levels which allow operation of two teams.
Sheriff’s Lt. John Sons said response time is good, even with officers coming from all over the county.
“We have take-home cruisers, so that cuts response time in half. The average, nationally, for response time is one hour. For the majority of calls, we have it down to 30 minutes, roughly,” he said pointing out that applies to emergency callouts.
For warrant service situations, those can be scheduled and participating officers can meet at a predetermined location, usually a nearby police department.
“I have no concern, whatsoever, about response time,” he said.
Sgt. Geoff Robinson, one of six Oxford members of the regional SWAT team, said it is not an unreasonable amount of time. He said team response time is 30 to 40 minutes but team members report directly to the scene and usually have an idea of what the problem is while on the way.
He cited a call-out on a recent weekend which was canceled before members arrived.
“We can gather quickly,” Robinson said. “The call came just before 4 a.m. and within 20 minutes the situation resolved itself. Everybody was already en route to the scene, even at that hour people were called while sleeping and had to dress and leave.”
Sons said the SWAT unit had two teams until several years ago when numbers fell off, largely due to the downturn in the economy and budget cuts, forcing all members to be ready for callout. The addition of Oxford’s officers, however, allows them to go back to two teams — the Red and Blue teams — and for the teams to be on call for rotating weeks.
There are still situations requiring all members to show up.
“We may need only one team for warrants for a small house, with only a couple entrances, or for a small apartment,” Sons said. “For a large apartment or a large building or a hostage barricade, we might need the entire (unit).”
While the number of calls is always a variable, Sons said the additional officers from Oxford give them more flexibility scheduling and responding.
The regional SWAT unit includes police officers from the Sheriff’s Department, Fairfield Twp. Police Department, Trenton Police Department, Monroe Police Department and Oxford Twp. Police Department, as well as the recent addition of Oxford.
The regional concept started in Butler County in 2005 and has slowly grown since then.
The expansion has been fairly recent, too. Sons said Monroe joined around the same time as Oxford with Oxford Twp. taking part six months earlier. Trenton has been a part of the SWAT unit for four years.
Sons illustrated the varied numbers of callouts for the SWAT unit by saying they were called out 19 times in 2010.
This year started slow, sons said, with no calls until Feb. 23 but then with four calls in 12 days.
While taking overall leadership for the regional SWAT, he is also the commander of one of the teams while Oxford’s Sgt. Robinson commands the other.
The two armored vehicles for use by the SWAT unit are housed at the Butler County Sheriff’s Office warehouse. One of them is a Lenco BearCat purchased last year 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.
SWAT members have monthly training in equipment and operations but members also go to outside specialized training and bring back information to share with everyone else which expands the scope of their training. Sons said the 21 members are divided into three seven-member groups who will do specialized training quarterly, but that has been a recent innovation with the expanded size since last December and is not fully operational.
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