Joint training attacks spillover violence
January 24, 2011 12:30 AM
By NAXIELY LOPEZ/The Monitor

SAN JUAN — Gunshots rang out for hours on Hall Acres Road. It came back the next day. Then the next.

No, police weren’t caught up in a high-octane standoff — not the real deal, anyway.

San Juan police held a three-day tactical training course last week at the San Juan shooting range for law enforcement agencies including the U.S. Marshals, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Weslaco, Donna and Mercedes police, said San Juan police Sgt. Rolando Garcia.

"We want to be able to work with federal and local agencies, all working together with the same training in case that we have some sort of situation of spillover violence, which is no longer just a possibility in McAllen, San Juan or Pharr," he said over the sound of gunshots. "It’s actually Valley-wide."

Men and women in bulletproof vests took turns walking through a maze of makeshift homes and practiced shooting at targets while on the move, all in an effort to reduce the possibility of injuries to themselves and others during a mass-scale event.

"It helps out and it’s a lot safer because a lot of times Donna may be trained one way, the Marshals may be trained another way, but here everybody is getting the same training," Garcia said. "Everybody is doing the same thing so if need be, we can all get in a stack and go into a house."

"The possibility of us getting hurt diminishes greatly because of the training."

Communication is vital during an emergency, Weslaco police spokesman Danny Elizondo said. Several patrol officers who wanted to join the department’s special response team were enlisted in the course, he added.

"All we had to do was bring the bodies and the weapons and they did pretty much everything else," he said about San Juan. "From here they’ll take it back to Weslaco and they’ll train others."

Garcia believes it’s important to train patrol officers, who are on the front line, he said.

"These guys are out there on the road, and in any given situation, they’ll be able to go out there just like the SWAT team," he said. "It’s a lot of different training that we’re throwing at them in three days, but it’s training that we’re going to be doing constantly."

One of the lessons officers learned was how to approach an entry during a hostage-like situation.

"The way we teach is we fan out so that we don’t just have one officer aimed at the target," Garcia said. "We get more guns on the door this way."

They also learned to how to use flash-bang grenades, which are similar to a concussion grenade, Elizondo said.

"You throw it in and it lets out a white light and loud noise, so it disorients whoever is inside or close by," he said. "They can’t see or hear very well, so it allows for us to make an entry."

The course also addresses how to take down fugitives in vehicles, especially useful for police seeing more and more drug-related chases, Garcia said.

"For a while, we were using them pretty often," Elizondo said about their special response team. "But things have kind of calmed down a bit and we really haven’t had a need to use them. But if we ever have a hostage, we ever have barricaded subjects, or a high-risk warrant that needs to be executed, we use the team."

Prevention is key, San Juan police Chief Juan Gonzalez said.

"Have we seen massive murders? Have we seen two or three Mexican drug cartels kill multiple people in Hidalgo County?" he asked. "No, of course not, and nobody wishes it to happen. But the thing is, I can guarantee you, that there is no law enforcement agency all the away from El Paso to Matamoros that has not acquired high-powered rifles, that has not created some sort of tactical unit or requested funds for specialized equipment."

"So what does that tell us? If we believe there’s no violence coming through, then why do all of that? Why prepare?"


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