Joining forces: Carrollton, Coppell, Addison, Farmers Branch launch North Texas Metro SWAT Team

The Carrollton, Coppell, Addison and Farmers Branch police departments are combining manpower and resources to create the North Texas Metro Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team.

Officers from the four cities will work and train together to deal with crisis situations in their communities and will be available for deployment as needed to back up officers in the field.

David Hale, Farmer Branch Deputy Chief and Joint Administrative Chief for the SWAT team, said the team is a natural extension of a growing partnership.

"We are seeing a growing trend of police agencies formalizing shared services," Hale said. "Our departments are already working together on other areas where we can be more effective and efficient by deploying resources where they are needed, when they are needed or looking for areas where we can share resources to make the delivery of service to our citizens more effective and efficient."

The team will be staffed by 24 officers from the Carrollton department, and 10 officers each from Addison, Coppell and Farmers Branch. In addition, each department will contribute crisis negotiators to the team. The North Texas SWAT team will also provide administrative and training support to its member departments.

The North Texas Metro SWAT team will Rex Redden, Carrollton Chief of Police, said the team is unique among multi-city police programs in that its officers will truly be a team.

"The Metro SWAT team differs from mutual aid programs where neighboring department respond to back up officers in another city," Redden said. "The SWAT officers will spend time training together and working as a team and function under a unified command structure when deployed. In the types of situations where a SWAT team is required, teamwork is vital to the success of the mission."

Commander Derick Miller from the Carrollton Police Department said the idea for the team began in October 2011, and was born from the recognition of the police department's duty to react to situations as rapidly as possible with the appropriate resources.

"The public expects the police to respond quickly to incidents," Miller said. "So if there is an incident at an airport or transit center, any one given agency, while they may have the expertise, may not have the manpower and resources to respond, and would have to call a larger metro SWAT team for support."

Coppell Chief of Police Mac Tristan said that the growing diversity and infrastructure in the four member cities has added new challenges and potential for emergency situations to arise.

"Our communities have become increasingly more populated, and we recognize the need for special training and equipment to respond to certain dangerous situations," Tristan said. "This was a yearlong effort to make sure that we put in place the policies, procedures and leadership structure needed to make this program effective."

Commander Kevin McCoy of the Carrollton Police Department said the team has been very well received, and the growing sense of partnership between the cities is a positive development.

"The feedback has been really positive," McCoy said. "People liked the idea of us all interacting together and having a program that bleeds across the borders. In some places, it's tough to tell where one city ends and another begins. A lot of citizens don't know they they've crossed the border into another city."

Farmers Branch City Manager Gary D. Greer said he supports the creation of the SWAT team, and that it will make a strong law enforcement team even stronger.

"We are already very proud of the low crime rate in our community and joining forces with our neighbors only helps make that effort even stronger," Greer said. "By doing so we eliminate duplication of effort, lower costs by combining equipment and training and, as a result, increase effectiveness. The only losers are the bad guys."

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