The Lubbock Police Department Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) Team will soon be reorganized into one single unit.
Right now, Commander over Lubbock SWAT, Lieutenant Nathan Anderson, said officers are working throughout different divisions within the department. He said many officers on the team work at different times all over the city.
In about a month, Lt. Anderson said all SWAT officers will be on a new schedule.
“We are going to be on duty all together all at the same time and not spread out throughout the entire department,” Anderson said. “And our hours are flexible and [we can] change our hours depending on what kind of situation that we are working on. We aren’t going to have to call people in from off duty, in order to take care of most of the situations that we are going to address.”
Lt. Anderson said it will reduce costs that accumulate from overtime pay. He said the team will also get more time for training. He said they train once a month but after reorganization they will be able to train once a week.
The SWAT team responds to high-risk situations like search warrants, hostage situations, officer down calls and barricaded gunmen.
Each case, emergency situations aside, go through a risk assessment.
“It’s a scoring system,” Lt. Anderson said. “So if you come up with a certain score, you are required to use the SWAT team and so that is where we get a lot of our activity from.”
The SWAT team responds to high-risk situations like search warrants, hostage situations, officer down calls and barricaded gunmen.
Each case, emergency situations aside, go through a risk assessment.
“It’s a scoring system,” Lt. Anderson said. “So if you come up with a certain score, you are required to use the SWAT team and so that is where we get a lot of our activity from.”
