July 07, 2003

Sheriff's elite units get SWAT training

By Brendan Scott
Times Herald-Record

Goshen – The situation is real enough for these greenhorns in jackboots:

An unarmed – but nonetheless hostile – father has stormed a classroom in the special education wing of Orange-Ulster BOCES. He demands custody of his estranged son and sends teachers and students fleeing into the parking lot.

Now, it's their job to get him out – without getting anyone killed. The officers huddle. They pick their positions and line up at the entrance to the hall.

"One. Two. Three – Go!" ...

It's only a drill. But it's by no means a far-fetched scenario for this fledgling Emergency Service Unit, or ESU, a SWAT-like team that the Orange County sheriff is building at 110 Wells Farm Road.

The goal is to create one 40-member force – a platoon of five eight-man teams – able to answer any raid, attack, riot, standoff or hostage situation inside or outside the jail, 24 hours a day.

To that end, Sheriff Carl DuBois has already merged the sheriff's two elite units: the Entry Team, which executes drug raids, and the Sheriff's Emergency Response Team, or SERT, which handles disturbances inside the county jail.

Still, it's a bold move for an agency that lacks traditional police patrols and has a reputation for stepping on the toes of overlapping police departments. But, citing an era of school shootings and color-coded terror alerts, the DuBois administration believes its 375-officer force has the manpower to meet a growing need.

"This is a classic case of where we can be a valuable asset," said Undersheriff Kenneth T. Jones. "We are one of the few departments in the position to provide a countywide service."

Small size, however, hasn't kept police departments across the nation, including quiet communities like Woodbury and Washingtonville, from establishing their own tactical squads. And after one tense standoff four years ago in Monroe, the village's 17-member force assembled its own six-officer ESU.

Lawmakers say avoiding turf battles with such outfits will be crucial to the success of the sheriff's ESU. And that, historically, has been a weak spot for the sheriff's office, which has occasionally clashed with the county's more than 30 police agencies over unauthorized road patrols.

But, in this instance, the county's law enforcement leaders seem to have embraced the sheriff's aggressive move. Monroe police Chief Dominic Giudice, for example, doesn't see his team as redundant to the sheriff's.

"Our people are familiar with the area," said Giudice, who also heads the county's Police Chiefs Association. "We're going to respond faster. If one good thing has come out of Sept. 11, it is that there are no more turf wars. Law enforcement has really come together."

Said state police Maj. Alan Martin of Troop F: "You can't have too many of these highly trained people around."

That training takes time, say Lts. Ray McDonald and Tony Mele, who are leading the sheriff's ESU. Some members of the teams may have years of experience, but the unit itself is at least 12 months away from handling a real scenario like the simulated hostage situation demonstrated at BOCES last week.

While drawing from the ranks of both correction officers and deputies adds to the talent pool, it also presents its own hurdles. It requires police officers to operate inside a sensitive and sometimes volatile jail environment and correction officers to meet a higher level of police training.

"This is not a jail," McDonald said, standing in the BOCES hallway after drilling the teams. "The rules are not the same."

Uniformity – in everything from training to combat boots – is also going to cost money. The sheriff's office plans to ask the county Legislature for $75,000 next year to equip the ESU.

"We're going to have to sit down and analyze each expense," said Legislator George Green, R-New Windsor, a retired police officer who heads the sheriff's oversight committee. But he added, "It's the right initiative."

To Jones, the ESU is a bargain.

"Calling it extravagant is like saying home insurance is extravagant," he said. "If you live in this county, you know these threats are real."