City councils in Cedar Park and Leander approved the formation of the team in early spring and Georgetown City Council gave approval July 28. CTRS can now be called to a scene if specific criteria are met to be called out to a scene, Georgetown Police Department Lt. Kelly DeVoll said. Because the police departments in Cedar Park, Leander and Georgetown are smaller, combining resources would allow officers to be better prepared foremergencies, he said.
“All three of our agencies have struggled throughout the years in fielding some sort of tactical capability,” DeVoll said. “We just don’t have the manpower [and] … fiscal resources to put all the equipment that needs to be out there.”
The CTRS team can be called upon to deal with certain types of emergencies if necessary. The formation of CTRS does not initially require additional funding from any cities, DeVoll said, and SWAT operations are paid for by the police departments’ budgets for tactical operations.
The selection process for choosing tactical operators and commanders for the team began last fall, DeVoll said, and training as a team began in April. Each training session focuses on a specific area, such as door breaching, firearms use, repelling, first aid and medical skills, negotiation tactics, and tracking for search and rescue. The team is trained to deal with ending situations peacefully and not unnecessarily using their weapons, DeVoll said.
“We are not militarizing the police forces,” he said. “We are putting very skilled, highly trained police officers into situations so that they can be resolved peacefully.”
Chanse Thomas, a lieutenant with the Cedar Park Police Department, said the public often misunderstands how many officers it takes to handle an emergency situation.
“I think [the public] sees eight guys that have all of their gear on, and they say, ‘Oh that’s plenty.’ But that’s really not reality,” he said. “We had a situation at Walnut Creek where there was an armed suicidal person who was shooting at officers, and you found out very quickly you don’t have enough people on scene to handle that appropriately.”
CTRS has already worked on a few incidents including a search-and-rescue in Georgetown in which officers located a lost woman who has Alzheimer’s disease.
“All three agencies have seen dramatic benefits from the SWAT [partnership],” DeVoll said.
Leander Police Department Lt. Derral Partin, who is part of the team, said CTRS is a “regional asset” to Williamson and Travis counties.
“It’s better to have a capable and proficient SWAT team and never need them than to need them and not have a team that can respond effectively to help any of our cities that need us,” Partin said.
When is a SWAT team necessary?
Some emergency situations in which the regional SWAT team may be necessary include:
- Hostage
- Barricaded person
- High-risk warrant service
- Search and rescue
- Personal protection of people who have specific threats against them
