4 SWAT Teams on Call for Crises : Law enforcement: With one of the lowest crime rates in the state, Ventura County maintains the seldom used tactical units as an ‘insurance policy.’

In a full-scale assault that startled residents of a Ventura neighborhood earlier this year, 30 heavily armed SWAT team members crept around a suspected rock house and hurled two flash-bang grenades through a window to stun the occupants before breaking into the house.

While the raid itself had overtones of the spectacular, the results of the SWAT operation were minimal. The early morning drug raid on North Olive Street netted three arrests, and two of the suspects were never prosecuted because of insufficient evidence.

In the view of police officials, however, the fact that the drug bust itself turned out to be relatively minor was no reason to question the use of such massive force.

They see the deployment of Special Weapons and Tactics teams in such situations throughout Ventura County as a sort of necessary insurance policy that can protect police officers and prevent bloodshed.

The Feb. 26 raid in Ventura was led by SWAT teams from the Ventura Police Department and the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, which maintain that heavy firepower--including Uzi and AK-47 submachine guns and tear-gas grenades--is necessary to guard against potential danger.

During the incident, the police expected to burst into the house and discover 15 to 20 people who had records of violence and reportedly owned guns, said Lt. David Inglis of the Ventura Police Department’s SWAT team.

“It’s better safe than sorry,” Inglis said, pointing out that no one was injured during the raid.

Many people associate SWAT teams--specially trained to rescue hostages, control riots and go after snipers--with high-crime, urban areas such as Los Angeles, where the concept of the SWAT team was developed by the Los Angeles Police Department in the aftermath of the Watts riots.

But Ventura County--with one of the lowest crime rates in California--boasts four SWAT teams.

“It’s kind of like an insurance policy,” said Inglis, who has commanded the Ventura Police Department’s SWAT team for 18 years. “Hopefully, you’ll never need it, but if you do, you’ve got it.”

The teams are seldom used--at most once a month and sometimes only twice a year. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department SWAT team responds to about 275 incidents a year.

However, throughout the country, cities of all sizes are realizing that they need special units on call to deal with the violence that often lurks even when serving routine search and arrest warrants, said Lt. Ben Nottingham, SWAT commander for the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.

“The liability to citizenry or officers demands that cities have tactical readiness for certain types of situations,” Nottingham said. “There has to be something done whether the teams are deployed once a year or 100 times a year.”

In Ventura County, three of the five cities that operate their own police departments have decided to create their own SWAT teams. The other seven cities have agreements for protection with neighboring cities or with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, which has a SWAT team operating from two units located in the eastern and western areas of the county.

The Ventura teams are based on the original idea for SWAT introduced by the Los Angeles Police Department in 1968, three years after the Watts riots in which 35 civilians died.

“The department realized that they had simply not been using the controlled firepower and tactical concepts that it needed to resolve the situation,” said Lt. Fred Nixon, an LAPD spokesman.

“People committing robberies and killings had better firepower than law enforcement,” Nottingham said.

The Los Angeles Police Department developed a unit highly trained to use powerful weapons rather than just “throwing up indiscriminate firepower,” Nixon said. About two years later, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department established its own SWAT team.

The Ventura Police Department established its SWAT team in 1970, Oxnard in 1971, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department in 1975 and the Simi Valley Police Department in 1983.

The cost of having such teams ranges between $25,000 and $35,000. Most of the money is spent in overtime for members to train once every other month.

“As far as I’m concerned, the cost is negligible,” said Oxnard Police Chief Robert Owens. “Anytime you can train police officers to protect themselves better, it’s a good investment.”

Ventura teams are usually sent to the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department for 40 hours of training in skills such as marksmanship, tear-gas deployment and the infiltration of buildings.

They also are taught their individual positions on the team. The prototypical team has a scout, an entry group, a gas man, a sniper, an observer and an arrest team. The lieutenant in command of the team sets up headquarters in a van about a block or two away.

During training, Ventura County teams learn how to rappel out of helicopters and down the sides of buildings. On practice days, passers-by may see men scaling down Oxnard’s City Hall or Ventura’s Holiday Inn.

However, the teams have been modified to deal with the infrequent and less severe crimes.

Unlike the teams from the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Ventura County team members do not serve full time on SWAT.

They maintain regular assignments as patrol officers, detectives and jail guards. They are pulled from their daily duties when an emergency arises.

Though hostage situations and barricaded suspects come about infrequently, just one problem could make the SWAT team necessary, said Lt. Paul Buckley of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

He recalled a 1981 case in which a deputy responded to a call of a disturbance in Piru. As he finished talking to the suspect and turned around to head for his car, the suspect shot him in the back with a .22-caliber rifle.

The deputy--who survived the wound--radioed for help. When backup patrols arrived, the suspect again began shooting.

The SWAT team was called in. About eight hours later, and after shooting the suspect once, the team was able to capture the man after flooding his house with tear gas.

For the past five years, Ventura County SWAT teams have been used more and more to help serve search and arrest warrants--a routine job that has become increasingly dangerous when dealing with narcotics offenders.

A SWAT team is deployed to serve a warrant if the suspect is armed, has fortified his location or has threatened police officers.

“We need to help with warrant services because of the proliferation of guns by dope dealers and the barricades they set up,” said Lt. Tom Cady of the Oxnard Police Department. “They put up solid-core doors and wrought-iron barricades.”

However, the Oxnard team’s most common job until last year was to be on call any time that President Ronald Reagan was in Ventura County’s air space on the way to his ranch in Santa Barbara.

Team members were to be no more than 20 minutes away from St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, which was designated as the President’s primary-care facility in case of illness or injury while flying over Ventura County.

The men had a plan mapped out in which they would seal off most of the hospital, guarding doors and positioning lookouts on the roof.

They were never called upon to perform this duty.

Despite the teams’ infrequent use, earning a spot on SWAT is a mark of prestige among Ventura County law enforcement agents.

“It’s considered a prestigious assignment because people go through a selection process,” Buckley said.

Most members leave the teams only if they are forced to because of promotions or injuries.

More than 30 deputies applied the last time three openings occurred on the sheriff’s team. They were weeded out through a six-part selection process, including a shooting test, a physical agility test and a psychological evaluation, Buckley said.

The department looks for men who are in good physical condition for running, climbing and jumping.

The department also wants men who are team-oriented and well-disciplined for a job that often means more time waiting than anything else.

The SWAT team commanders emphasize that, contrary to public opinion, they are eager to avoid confrontations. As long as no hostages are in danger, they are happy to out-wait the suspect.

“If we have to talk for three days, we’ll talk for three days,” Inglis said.