SWAT Challenge: ‘This is just tremendous fun'

More than 100 members from nine Special Weapons and Tactics teams across Northern California descended on the Mid-Valley on Wednesday to rescue imaginary hostages and take down make-believe terrorism suspects.

The Yuba Sutter SWAT Challenge, the first event of its kind in the area, provided realistic training exercises — and some competition — for visiting teams looking to test their skills in unfamiliar territory.

Matt Forest from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Susanville, took on a sequence of combined weapons course obstacles at the Yuba County Sheriff's Department shooting range.

With a 50-pound dumbbell in each hand and roughly 60 pounds of weapons and protective gear strapped to his body, he hurried through a timed power walk, after which he had to run, crouch and shoot at targets from a range of vantage points, then pursue a barricaded suspect.

"Number one, this is just tremendous fun," Yuba County Sheriff Steve Durfor said of the event he helped organize.

"And you learn a great deal from the other teams," he said.

While Forest's teammates ran through — or ambushed — the gauntlet on the shooting range, another team from the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office charged a school bus in the parking lot.

"The bus driver has jumped off the bus," said Deputy Charles Green of the Sutter County Sheriff's Department, who was tasked with establishing scenarios for each team. "All you have (on the bus) is the shooter, and one other scared child."

The shooting range property was the site of four separate challenges through which teams rotated, including a two-man assault and an open-area search.

There, as at three other Mid-Valley sites, local law enforcement personnel evaluated, and later rated, visiting teams.

"Very good communications," Green told a bus search team during an after-action briefing. "And as soon as the doors were open, you were in."

Durfor said the local area's two SWAT teams travel to participate in similar challenges held in the region during the year.

"We thought it would be nice this time to pool our resources and reciprocate," he said.