EVERETT — The Everett Police Department plans to reinstate its SWAT team.
The special weapons and tactics team was sidelined this spring due to retirements and injuries. At the time, there weren’t enough SWAT-trained officers left.
The new team just finished a weeklong training session in Oregon, Sgt. Ryan Dalberg said Thursday. It’s not clear when the team will go live.
“We wanted to get some of these folks in place before we decided to continue,” he said.
The department picked a new SWAT team leader after the former one retired, he said. The department’s command staff is figuring out the new team’s shape and direction. No major changes are planned.
“We’re trying to evaluate the personnel and get these people up to speed,” he said. “We’ve got to figure out where the team needs to be and go from there.”
If Everett needs a SWAT response before then, they’ll call the Snohomish County sheriff’s SWAT team. That’s been the arrangement for the past few months.
The sheriff’s team hasn’t been called out to Everett in that time, sheriff’s spokeswoman Rebecca Hover said.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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