Prison Assault Teams--First Line of Defense Against Riots

If I was a hostage . . . I’d want the best-trained people to come in and get me out. That’s what this is all about. --A state correctional officer

M. J. Briggs, a female warrior from greased face to assault gun, crouched 30 feet from an uprising that was swiftly becoming the prison riot that Californians fear is overdue.

She and other members of Special Emergency Response Teams from most of the state’s prisons were poised to charge through the dark into the rebellion at any second.

They would attack automatically if inmates harmed hostages in the single-story prison outbuilding.

Reinforcements would be on the way.

National Guard helicopters would set down at the rest of the state’s prisons to collect remaining teams. All 200 or so specially trained, heavily armed correctional officers would thunder in through foggy pre-dawn skies within six hours.

Psychological Deterrent

The 2-year-old force might be facing its biggest test, but it already has earned in-house praise for quelling disturbances in California’s crowded prisons and providing a psychological deterrent against riots. The teams have become a model for other states and federal prisons and, at home, have allowed local police to rest easier.

At 5:04 a.m., a radio crackled. “Bravo Squad. This is Tango One. Are you in position?”

Minutes later in the darkness near Briggs, a voice shouted, “How are the hostages? What do you want?” Inside, an inmate screamed above shouts and curses, “We want out.”

In the darkness outside, commands were whispered.

At 5:18 a.m., Briggs and the others in Army fatigues, bristling with weapons, abruptly swept toward the building amid gunfire, kicked down doors and bellowed commands to “freeze.” The blurred, 20-second ballet ended with inmates belly-down on the floor in handcuffs.

But instead of hauling the “inmates” away, team members and prisoners together trotted out of the building and lined up in formation as dawn touched the sky.

Eight-Day Exercise

The attack had culminated an eight-day basic training exercise for correctional officers who want to double as Special Emergency Response Team members. The exercise earlier this month, involving officers representing most California prisons, was staged at the National Guard’s Camp San Luis Obispo, about 170 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

Prison officials have conducted the program so quietly that it was the first time a news reporter had viewed one of the quarterly sessions. “It’s not something you run around advertising because then inmates might run around testing it,” one official said.

“The assault was real” to participants, said Briggs, a correctional officer at Soledad Prison near Salinas and the fourth woman in SERT. “If I was a hostage . . . I’d want the best-trained people to come in and get me out. That’s what this is all about.”

The teams, patterned after police SWAT squads, were organized in late 1984 as part of an overall disturbance-control program, which includes separate negotiation and conflict-prevention teams.

SERT acts as the first line of defense during disturbances. The fact that the teams are armed distinguishes them from other correctional officers, who do not normally carry lethal weapons among prisoners.

Know the Terrain

In a riot, the teams might spearhead a counterattack because the Highway Patrol and National Guard would be unfamiliar with the institution.

Training will cost $1.2 million in the current 1985-86 fiscal year and $2 million next year.

SERT is “a small, highly mobile, extremely well-trained group as opposed to a half-trained, large elephant,” disturbance-control program coordinator Elaine Sherwood said after the exercise.

“We’re talking men and women who volunteer to beat their brains out to provide security for staff and citizens,” said the former correctional officer.

“Basically, we’re using street SWAT techniques . . . and we’ve been getting some good training from some of the Los Angeles Police Department’s specialists.”

Fifteen to 21 SERT members are stationed at each prison, with their shifts spread around the clock so that a five-man squad, with gear nearby, is always available. Extra squads can be summoned from home or other prisons.

Emphasis on Negotiating

“If the on-duty crew cannot maintain control, we call in SERT. Then the on-duty staff provides perimeter security while the team takes over the site,” Sherwood said.

Emphasis is on negotiating “until the instant that hostages’ lives become actively endangered. Then we’ll go in,” she said.

Prison officials commonly say it is “miraculous” that there have been no major riots among California’s overcrowded inmate population of more than 50,000, the largest of any state. They say that SERT may be a major factor.

Since creation of SERT, “the number of large actions by inmates has decreased,” Sherwood said.

Sgt. Jack Corrie, a state Corrections Department spokesman and a team member at maximum-security Folsom Prison near Sacramento, said SERT has “proven itself on little things enough to where it acts as a deterrent.”

About 200 inmates sat down recently in a Folsom Prison exercise yard during a show of defiance. But the incident dissipated soon after SERT was activated, prison officials said.

There are no comprehensive statistics on the frequency and effects of SERT activations because wardens are not required to report all incidents, Sherwood said.

SERT knowledge has paid off in unexpected ways.

About four months ago at medium-security Soledad Prison, about “300 inmates were running amok inside a unit,” Sherwood said.

“The staff was shutting doors, throwing people in cells . . . but was losing it. There was a SERT person who had some extra knowledge and was able to organize the responding on-duty staff in a tactically sound way.

“He sent a crew around the back . . . and timed their assault back in, and got the place fully under control in an hour and a half.”

Surprisingly, teams at maximum-security prisons are not necessarily the ones facing the greatest dangers. “They’ve got more serious inmates, but also the facility and the on-duty staff is more geared to dealing with it,” Sherwood said.

California’s disturbance-control program is the most advanced among U.S. prison systems, she said.

The Trend-Setters

Various states and the federal prison system use some elements of the California program, but none has a comprehensive program that matches it, Sherwood said. Four states have sent people to observe California’s training and another 11 have shown interest, she said.

Meanwhile, coordinators of the various emergency-response programs nationwide have established a sort of “underground network” for trading information on training and weaponry.

Along with 10 hours of training each month, California stages four basic sessions for volunteering officers annually, all held in San Luis Obispo. By the time they arrive, officers already have undergone preliminary training--partially to screen out those who are “somewhere between John Wayne and Attila the Hun . . .” as Sherwood put it.

Twenty-three correctional officers, representing most of the prisons in the state, began the recent course at Camp San Luis Obispo. Two dropped out. But other sessions have experienced up to six dropouts because of injuries and other reasons, Sherwood said.

Officers practice such skills as rappelling, marksmanship, silent commands, night maneuvers and assaults in various settings.

Each Has a Job

Each of the five people in a squad has a designation--leader, point, backup, multipurpose and rear security. Each has a specific function in an assault.

Weapons, many adapted from SWAT or anti-terrorist uses, include stun grenades that emit sound and light, smoke bombs, strip explosives, semiautomatic and automatic weapons, handguns and shotguns.

The program also provides each prison with a two-member marksman squad, which has three jobs: finding high ground from which to make observations, protecting other team members and killing rioters if necessary.

The marksmen are taught to fire “cold” at people without warming up, Sherwood said.

“Snipers don’t get practice shots,” she said.