By Aaron Stuckel

Regina police training on new armoured vehicle

Dec 20, 2013 | 11:33 AM

A new deal with the RCMP has the Regina Police Service’s tactical unit training on some new equipment.

The two police forces have come to a deal to share an armoured vehicle that will be used in dangerous situations where emergency response teams (also known as SWAT teams) have been called in.

“It allows us to position ourselves in places where we were unable to do so because we would expose ourselves to a threat,” said Sgt. Brad Walter. “It’s a shield. It provides us protection when we’re executing tactics, and it also provides us protection when we’re doing officer-down rescues or even citizen-down rescues.”

Media were afforded to opportunity to watch the emergency response unit perform a citizen-down rescue outside of the Ken Jenkins Elementary School on Thursday. Officers rescued a dummy victim from an alley way by driving the truck between the victim and the school where a shooter would have been in a real-life situation.

It’s all part of training that the Regina Police Service has been doing all week.

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“Any time that we can train for any potential incident out there, it’s going enhance the ability of the officers to do it safely and quickly,” said Bob Gallegos, from Technical Mission consultant which provides training to law enforcement.

Gallegos worked with the Los Angeles Police Department’s special weapons and tactics team for 23 years. He said the new vehicle isn’t just good for officers, but for the public as well.

“It can only enhance community safety. It’s an amazing vehicle,” he said. “It’s a heavy vehicle so ballistic-wise, it’s going to be resistant towards a lot of different weapons systems out there.”

And while Walter said he’s glad the community will be safer with the new equipment, he said it also takes away some anxiety when he sends his team into a dangerous situation.

“As a team leader, I’m always concerned exposing team members to threat and to risk,” he said. “It’s a comfort for me to know that we can do the tactics to a higher level (but) safer.”

RCMP have already received training on the new armoured truck. If either police force is called out on a tactical mission, the armoured truck will now go along with them. Both police forces will share the truck both in real-life situations and for further training.

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