LYNNWOOD — The South Snohomish County Special Weapons and Tactics Team is considering adding officers to its ranks.
The team now is made up of 17 police officers from Lynnwood, Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace.
Mukilteo and Mill Creek are among the police departments that have considered adding bodies to the team.
Talks still are in the exploratory stages, said Lynnwood police spokeswoman Shannon Sessions, who also serves in that role for the south county SWAT team.
Like many police organizations, the team is looking for new ways to share resources when many cities are strapped for cash, she said. The team is brainstorming other ideas as well.
Mill Creek police are looking at their options with SWAT, Sgt. Ian Durkee said. One of the police department’s goals is to participate more regionally with other agencies.
The department does have an officer on the regional Hostage Negotiation Team, and adding a SWAT officer could help them do more, he said. The spot on SWAT also could be a good recruiting tool, because it would be considered a speciality assignment.
“However, at this point, there are additional meetings and discussions that will need to take place prior to this becoming a reality,” Durkee said.
In Mukilteo, the police department’s command staff met with regional police groups after Rex Caldwell took over as chief in January.
They learned about SWAT’s costs, training schedules and other commitments, Caldwell said.
There is no plan in place to join SWAT for now, due to budget and staffing constraints, he said.
Sessions wouldn’t say if other agencies were involved in the talks.
If cities down the road decide to add officers, the change likely would have to be approved by the police agencies, city councils and labor unions, she said. They aren’t expected to make a decision anytime soon.
The team hasn’t added to its ranks in recent memory, probably at least 15 years, she said.
SWAT gets called out more often than people realize, she said. They often are needed in “heavy situations,” such as serving high-risk arrest warrants or when people barricade themselves from the police.
“Fortunately, while these things don’t happen every day in south Snohomish County, they do happen, and they happen on a regular enough basis where these officers need to train and be prepared and be ready,” she said.
The Everett Police Department sidelined its SWAT team earlier this year, citing losing members to retirements and injuries. The next SWAT basic training class isn’t available until September. It’s unclear if the department will be bringing SWAT back. For now, it will call upon the Snohomish County sheriff’s SWAT team.
There also have been preliminary talks of forming a regional SWAT team in north county, Marysville police Cmdr. Robb Lamoureux said. It hasn’t been decided when that could happen or exactly which cities would be involved.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com
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