SWAT Teams Go Through a Test of Fire : Law enforcement: Units get training by competing with each other in marksmanship during stressful situations.

Imagine target practice with events like “Crossfire Chaos” and “Shotgun Assault a la Mozambique,” “Soft Cover Shootout” and “We’re Not Outgunned Today.”

But when you’ve got not one but eight SWAT teams from around California struttin’ their firepower and marksmanship, we’re not talking about poppin’ beer cans from off the tree stump.

There was the sound of 12-gauge semiautomatic shotguns, 9-millimeter semiautomatic rifles, 9-millimeter pistols and, to wrap it all up, a mighty blast from a marksman’s heavy-barreled .308-caliber sniper rifle.

The event was called “SWAT: The Challenge,” the first competition of its type in Southern California, staged at a shooting range here over three days this past week. It was not an exact duplication of the kinds of scenarios SWAT teams may find themselves in--after all, no one was returning fire and the targets weren’t flesh and blood--but it wasn’t exactly all fun and games, either.

Its purpose: to test various SWAT teams’ ability to coordinate, to shoot accurately and to handle various weapons under as much stress as can be artificially created to simulate the kind of heart-thumping anxiety they might face on the shadow-filled streets.

There was the ticking of the timer’s clock, measuring how quickly the officers could fire, hit their targets without striking “friendly” marks, reload and fire again. There were the judges, measuring how disciplined the officers were in firing their deadly weapons, and how accurate they were. And there were all those other cops watching from behind, sizing up the competition and reacting to every missed shot and pratfall.

“This kind of competition shows us what we can produce on demand,” said Sgt. Ed Flint of the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department, which took the event’s first-place trophy. “If we can do this (training) routinely, it won’t be quite as taxing on us when the real thing comes along.”

Other participants represented municipal police departments from Santa Ana, Long Beach, Corona, Fresno, Bakersfield, Sacramento and San Francisco.

Like other special weapons and tactics teams that have not fired weapons in real combat for months or years, the San Francisco SWAT team had not shot a weapon in a real, life-and-death situation for more than three years.

But because that time may come at any moment, they and others say they must remain ever-expert with their weapons, skills and tactics.

“What we’ve learned more than anything else over the years is that police don’t train enough,” said SWAT team member Mike Taylor, one of San Francisco’s 28 full-time SWAT officers. When they are not being called out to deal with barricaded suspects or hostage situations, they are serving high-risk arrest warrants.

“The public thinks we’re better than we are,” he said. “Well, you don’t just snap a finger and be good. We may appear awesome on TV (dramas), but the bad guys are probably better than we are in real life. They’ve got better weapons, they shoot better and they don’t have any conscience about the value of human life.”

In one event, a sniper had to knock off four four-inch targets from 200 yards while hiding atop a small building--then, with clock running, climb down a ladder, run 100 yards uphill to a nest of boulders and, chest heaving from the sprint, settle into another shooting position and knock down three more four-inch and six-inch targets from 400 yards. A rhapsody of kaplowee-pings signaled success.

Another event called for officers to run a 100-yard course, shooting at more than 30 targets from behind barrels, a wall and a car while alternating from pistol to shotgun to submachine gun, and reloading along the way.

In a scenario meant to reflect an attack on a house occupied by terrorists, one hurried officer mistakenly shot a cardboard cutout representing a hostage, surely killing the innocent figure with two shots to the chest.

The most telling event, most agreed, was a nighttime exercise in which officers shot targets illuminated only by brilliant red flares and a strobe light. Amid the loss of night vision because of the hot glare, the strobe’s confusing illumination and the wafting of smoke, some officers realized that they had left targets standing when they thought they were done--and, in real life, could have been killed.

Unscripted--but something that taught SWAT teams the reality of their jobs--was the occasional malfunctioning of weapons, a possibility that could prove deadly on the job.

And so if there was one hero during the SWAT competition, it was Jerry Rodriguez, the Corona Police Department’s designated sniper, whose job in one drill was to take out a target at 80 yards with his rifle.

His rifle jammed. With the clock ticking and his teammates having finished their portion of the shooting drill, Rodriguez coolly pulled his 9-millimeter Beretta pistol from its holster, took aim and, on his second try, hit the six-inch-diameter plate nearly a football field away with a stunning shot considered all but impossible with a handgun.

He stood up and waved triumphantly as amazed competitors from the other SWAT teams stood before him, held their arms up and bowed to him in homage.