Inside SDPD SWAT Training: Michelle Khare Takes On the Fitness Test, Breaching, Rappelling, and a Mock Mission
Michelle Khare
In this episode of Challenge Accepted, Michelle Khare spends a week training with the San Diego Police Department's SWAT team. The plan is to work through the team's physical standards and core skills (entry tactics, door breaching, rappelling, hostage-rescue scenarios, night vision and flashbangs) and finish with a mock mission alongside real SWAT operators. Throughout the week, the instructors return to one idea more than any technique: SWAT work depends on teammates trusting each other completely, and on slowing situations down instead of rushing in.
The Physical Fitness Test
The chief of the San Diego Police Department explains that the first step is the physical fitness course. In real operations, officers wear heavy equipment and may still have to climb fences, low crawl, and get past obstacles, so the test checks whether a candidate can do those things.
To pass, Khare has to complete a series of events back to back:
- sprint a quarter mile in under 85 seconds
- 30 sit-ups in one minute
- 20 push-ups in one minute
- six pull-ups
- the obstacle course in under four minutes
She finishes the sprint in 77 seconds, which the instructor calls passing "barely." She then passes the sit-ups with 45 and the push-ups with 34. The pull-ups are where she fails, with only three reps. She is visibly frustrated. She says she trained for about four months to reach ten pull-ups for her Navy SEAL episode, and she is struck by how quickly that strength faded once she stopped training it. She also notes that doing every event back to back makes each one harder.
The instructors let her attempt the final event anyway. She runs the obstacle course in long pants, shoes, and gloves, with body armor underneath. Asked which obstacle is hardest, the instructor names the dummy drag: hauling roughly 180 pounds, which leaves "your legs feel[ing] like Jell-O." The run is loud, with instructors coaching her the whole way: getting low, going through a window with a tuck and roll, swinging her hips and hooking a leg over obstacles, dragging the dummy while being told she can't stop, and controlling her descent off a fence. Her time is 5:55, well over the four-minute standard. She acknowledges that she has not met the entrance qualifications for SDPD SWAT. One instructor still calls the effort impressive, and Khare remarks that doing it alongside the best makes it much harder.
Entry Training: Ready Positions and Body Language
The instructors explain that SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics, and they call entry training one of the most integral parts of the job. It depends on teamwork, and they describe it as tough training.
The lesson starts with how to carry a rifle. In a ready position, the buttstock sits in the pocket of the shoulder. If the officer decides to fire, they snap the weapon up, take the safety off, and fire only the shots needed to end the threat. Officers usually hold either a low ready or a high ready position. Khare brings up a hip-level carry she has seen on TV, and the instructor asks whether that would be appropriate with a teammate standing right in front of her. Her answer is no; she should move to "high port," with the muzzle pointed up and away from the team.
On a whiteboard sketch of a room, the instructor demonstrates a "cross stack," with one operator on each side of a doorway. Deciding who goes first and who goes second relies largely on body language. One operator signals "I'm number one" through their posture. The supporting operator approaches and looks to the leader for direction. A brief raise and lowering of the muzzle tells the partner to open the door. Khare asks whether to open it "normally or SWAT style." The answer is normally, and the instructor adds that breaching an unlocked door is "really embarrassing."
The Misconception About Kicking In Doors
The instructor uses that moment to correct a common belief. People often imagine SWAT arriving, running straight to the door, and kicking it in. The instructor says the team does nearly the opposite: they try to slow things down, de-escalate, and negotiate so the person surrenders peacefully. That is always the goal, and the instructor says it is what happens most of the time.
Clearing a Room: The Hard Corner and Trust
Once the door opens, the first operator takes the path of least resistance into the room and the second follows right behind. The instructors point out the "hard corner," the area beside the doorway that can't be seen from outside, which has to be checked on entry. They say the key is foot placement: the two operators cover each other as quickly as possible as they move through. Khare compares it to dance partners, then jokes that she wants a different partner.
After entering, the operators scan the room with their muzzles pointed, looking over the top of their sights so they can react to anything that needs to be addressed. When the room is clear they call it out, and the full call is "clear, all clear, last room."
The instructor connects the technique to trust. If the first operator goes through the door and a threat is in the area the second operator is responsible for, the first operator has to trust "110%" that the partner will deal with it. Otherwise, they could die.
The Incidents That Shaped the Team
The episode briefly describes two events the department says shaped how the team works. The first is the 1984 McDonald's massacre, in which a gunman entered the restaurant and shot people eating lunch, including people in the street through the windows. Archival footage describes the victims as men, women, children, and babies, and quotes one officer saying it looked like a mass execution. According to the department, the incident showed the need for a team trained in hostage rescue. One speaker says the quality of officers hasn't changed since then, but the tactics and equipment have. The team now has armored rescue vehicles, night vision goggles, robots it can send into buildings, and snipers.
The second is the Las Vegas shooting at an outdoor country music festival, which the episode calls the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. A speaker says the team never used "overwatch" when they were on it, but large events are now seen as possible targets. They name the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon, Comic-Con, and the MLB All-Star Game held in San Diego as events where the SWAT team helps keep things safe.
Manual Breaching
Breaching, the instructors explain, is needed whenever something prevents officers from getting into an area or structure. Khare will try both manual and explosive breaching. For hostage rescue, the team prefers explosive breaching because speed matters.
The most important rule is to check the doorknob first, because opening the door is always faster. The instructor admits this sounds funny but says it is true. Khare then uses a "door knocker," a battering ram weighing about 32 pounds. The technique is to keep her eye on the deadbolt, set her feet, swing from the waist, and drive through. Her first swing doesn't work, so she resets her stance and breaks the door on the next attempt. She jokes about the person inside hearing that noise and then finding her on the other side.
Explosive Breaching
The team then moves straight to explosives, which Khare comments on as things escalating quickly. The instructors place a charge on the door that is meant to create an instant opening into the structure. After a countdown ("fire in the hole," "stand by for breach in five, four, three, two") the charge goes off, and the team calls "positive breach."
Then Khare sets one off herself. The instructors tell her to tuck her head so any overpressure from the blast passes over her helmet. She rotates the cam safety up until she sees red, then presses the trigger button at the end of the countdown and falls in with the team. She compares it to Wile E. Coyote pressing the detonator, and says it felt epic and was much cooler than the manual breach.
Rappelling Despite a Fear of Heights
Rappelling comes next, and an instructor mentions having heard that Khare may be afraid of heights. The setup has one window about 40 feet up and another about 20 feet off the ground below it. She will practice bounding into the lower window. The instructors say rappelling has real-world uses. They have had missions where officers rappelled into position to cut off a suspect's escape routes. They also tie it back to trust, both in teammates and in equipment.
She starts by holding the windowsill and doing a kind of reverse pull-up into the brake position. The instructor explains that she won't move until she chooses to, and that loosening her grip on the brake strand shows her how to control the friction. She is surprised to find it fun. She gets past the window, and the instructor reminds her that tension in her hand and body puts tension on the line. She notes that she never looked down.
From there the drills get progressively harder. First she goes faster with her feet further out on the wall. Next she bounds past the window. Last, she bounds into it. On her first try she brakes as she lands in the window and says she can do better. A later attempt goes well, and the instructor says she nailed it.
Hostage Scenario: The Fatal Funnel
The first live scenario has a briefing: a recently fired employee has taken their boss hostage at a local business. The suspect is reported to have a pistol and a rifle and has given a one-minute countdown before executing the hostage. Live role players inside will shoot simunitions back at the team.
On the first attempt, Khare stalls at the entrance. The instructor says stress took over and she got bottled up in the doorway, which they call the "fatal funnel," one of the worst mistakes possible. The longer someone stays there, the more likely they are to be hit.
On the second attempt, the team gets through the doorway and the scenario ends with the suspect down. The instructor calls it a good job but points out two problems. She didn't check the hard corner. And after a teammate, Stephanie, had already cleared a barricade, Khare looked at it herself as she walked by. The instructor acknowledges this is a normal human reaction but says it doesn't belong in a team setting. When a teammate says an area is 100% clear, you walk past without looking. Khare's own conclusion is that "Call of Duty in real life is so hard."
Night Vision and Flashbangs
Next comes a drill with night vision goggles, which Khare says reminds her of a ghost-hunting show. Only barricades and paper targets are involved, and the rule is to shoot until the target goes down.
The instructors then add a flashbang, a concussive device, to the next scenario. First they have her experience a blast up close. In the scenario that follows, she doesn't follow her partner into the room quickly enough. The instructor tells her that if the suspect had been in the deep right side of the room, her partner, Phil, would be dead. They acknowledge that flashbangs scare her but say she has to get into the room as his number two, or she is failing both him and the hostage. They come back to the theme of the week: once trust falls apart, the whole operation falls apart.
The Final Challenge: A Mock Mission
The final challenge takes place at Strategic Operations, which an instructor describes as a movie set. The instructor's point is that films try to look realistic, and training aims for the same realism. The exercise uses a real dispatcher, the air support unit, and other SWAT operators, with everything that would be part of a real call.
The scenario begins with shots fired. An officer has been hit in the leg, can't walk, and is pinned behind cover by a suspect firing from the third story of a building about 60 feet away. Khare's job is to cover her teammates as they move between pieces of cover, such as a white Conex box, while they report the suspect's position: first on the third floor with a view in every direction, later moving down to the second floor. When they reach the wounded officer, a tourniquet goes on the right leg. Khare covers the team while they pull the officer back, and then they switch to a two-officer carry, which is faster, to get the officer to the patrol cars.
Once containment is set up, Khare goes with a sniper to the fifth floor of a tower about 50 yards from the target building, a three-story structure with a camouflage roof. She radios that the sniper is in position. The sniper explains that their whole job is to stay there and gather intelligence for the team that will move up on the suspect. When the suspect throws something out a window, Khare asks why they don't just shoot. The sniper says that at this point the suspect is a lone barricaded person who isn't posing a threat to anyone. That holds even though the suspect has already shot someone.
The suspect then surrenders. Officers give commands to walk out with hands behind the head, moving backward toward their voices, and handcuff the suspect. Then the team clears the building. Rob goes in as number one and Khare follows as number two, and the scenario ends with "first floor is clear… clear, all clear, last room."
Where It Ends
Khare didn't meet the physical entrance standards, failing the pull-ups and running the obstacle course nearly two minutes over the limit. Still, she makes it through the full progression of training and the final mock mission. Exhausted, she says the week was eye-opening and gave her a glimpse of what it takes to serve on San Diego SWAT. Across every scenario, her mistakes were less about strength than about the team habits the instructors kept emphasizing: getting through the doorway, checking the hard corner, following a partner into a room despite fear, and trusting a teammate's "clear" without looking for herself.
This week on Challenge Accepted, I am going to SWAT Academy. We'll be breaching doors, rappelling through windows, all leading up to a high-stakes final challenge where I will be going on a mock mission with a real-life SWAT team. Challenge Accepted.
Hello, my name is David Nisleit, and I am the chief of the San Diego Police Department. The first thing that we're going to put Michelle in is our physical fitness course. Can you climb a fence? Can you low crawl? Can you complete the different obstacles? Because in real life, wearing a lot of heavy equipment, we might ask you to do all that.
In order to pass, I need to sprint a quarter mile in under 85 seconds, do 30 sit-ups in a minute, 20 push-ups in a minute, six pull-ups, and then complete the obstacle course in under four minutes, all back to back to back.
This is the easy part, girl. Just a sprint. Just a sprint. All right, Michelle, stand by. Three, two, one, go.
74, 75, 76, 77. 77 seconds. Good job. You made it. Barely.
After passing the quarter-mile sprint, I then proceeded to pass the sit-ups. You're done. 45. Okay. Pass the push-ups. One. You're done. 34. But then I failed the pull-ups. Three reps. Dang.
It's challenging, especially doing everything back to back. I'm just frustrated because I trained for like four months to get 10 pull-ups for the Navy SEAL test, right? It's just frustrating how quickly the strength goes away when you're not working on it actively. But even though I failed the pull-ups, they still let me try the final event, the obstacle course.
The obstacle course needs to be run in four minutes and under. So the required equipment, as you already have on: long pants, shoes, gloves, and you have body armor underneath it. I do.
So there are a lot of different obstacles throughout this. Which one is the most difficult? I would say the dummy drag is probably the hardest for folks. Carrying about 180 pounds, your legs feel like Jell-O. Okay, hold on. Three, two, one, go.
Good job, Michelle. Control your breathing. Come on. Use those arms. Put that leg. Come on. Get your body nice and low. Good. Nice, nice. Good technique. You're almost there. There you go. Okay, you're coming up to the window now. Get through. Tuck and roll. Come on, girl. There you go. There you go. You got this. Use your hips.
There you go. Swing your hips. Hook that leg. Hook it. Nice. Good job. Let's go. Okay, use your legs, Michelle. Let's go on this one. Short little steps. Nice. Whatever you do, just keep moving your legs. Keep moving your legs. You're doing great. Drag it anywhere you can. Michelle, we can't stop here. We can't stop here. Let's go. You can. You got it. Move your feet. You can do this. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Keep going, keep going. And drop. Drop it. Let's go.
Now you got a fence. When you go over this fence, I want you to control your descent on the way down. There you go. Nice, nice job. Drop and go, drop and go. Come on. That leg, that leg. Come on, get it up there. Get it up there. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Michelle, come on. Get up and go. Let's go. Here we go, Michelle. Almost there. Get through. Here we go. Nice roll. Let's go. Roll. Get your head. All right. All the way up. Slow descent. There you go. One foot at a time. Go, go. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Sprint through, sprint through, sprint through. Go, go, go. Time. 5:55. 5:55. Okay. Good job.
So obviously I have not passed the entrance qualifications for being a part of SDPD SWAT. Unfortunately, you have not. Doing it with the best is so much harder. That was impressive. Well done. Thank you.
The term SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics. Entry training is one of the most integral things that we do. It really relies on teamwork. It's tough. The training is tough.
We're going to talk about working in a team environment, carrying a firearm. It starts with ready positions. Buttstock in the pocket of the shoulder. If I make the decision to fire, I will snap up, safety off, and then I can depress the trigger and take the shots necessary to end that threat. Generally, it's either going to be in low ready position or the high ready position.
And this is where it's—that's the one you see on TV shows. It's the hip, slick, and groovy thing. Yeah. What if I were standing in front of you on an entry team? Would that be an appropriate position for you to be in at that moment? Yeah, probably want to come completely to high port. High port. High port, yep. It's like a fine wine. Exactly, exactly.
Right here in my beautiful illustration of a room, this is going to be our doorway. So we're going to like to do what we call cross-stack: one operator here and one operator here. How we're going to decide who one and two is, there's going to be a little bit of body language involved. As I'm walking up, you see his body language. He's saying, I have a problem. I'm number one. My body language, I'm coming up, I'm in support, and I'm looking right at him. Hey, what do you want me to do, pal? He wants me to open the door. He raises his muzzle and puts it right back down. That, to me, is saying he's ready for me to open the door.
Open the door normally or like SWAT style? Just normal. Okay. It's really embarrassing to breach an unlocked door.
That's a big misconception about SWAT, is that we're going to get to a scene and we're going to jump out of our truck and run right up to the door and kick it in and go fully tactical, like right when we get there. But that's almost the exact opposite of what we do. We're going to get to a scene and we're going to do everything we can to try to slow things down, de-escalate, and try to negotiate and have them surrender peacefully. That's always a goal. And to be honest with you, that happens a majority of the time.
I open the door, then he's going to step into the room, going path of least resistance, and I get in right behind him. When you're coming into the room, we call this the hard corner. The hard corner, yeah. You have to check this. There's no way that we're going to be able to see if somebody's standing right here, so that's why it's called the hard corner.
The magic here, if you will, is going to be the placement of our feet. Ooh. And we're covering each other as fast as we can through here. It's like you're dancing partners. It's like a dance, but I want a different partner. You don't like dancing. Good footwork. Move past it. Yeah.
So we get in there, and then we're going to start scanning the room. Muzzle pointed. You can be looking right over the top of your sights because you want to be ready for something that needs to be addressed. There it is.
Clear. Clear. You say clear. Cool. It technically goes clear, all clear, last room. We don't need to get into that, but that's cool. Okay, fine. Clear, all clear, last room. Let's go.
If I'm one going through that door, and I go through and there's a bad guy right here, I have to absolutely 110% trust that Sam is going to get in there and take care of that bad guy if need be. Or else you could die.
There were a couple different instances, or tragedies, that kind of shaped how our team works. In 1984, there was the McDonald's massacre. A gunman just went into the restaurant and started shooting people that were eating lunch. He fired through windows, hitting people in the street. He fired at men, women, children, and babies. One officer said it looked like a mass execution. It just demonstrated the need for us to have a team that is trained in hostage rescue.
The quality of officer hasn't changed, but the tactics and equipment have. We have our armored rescue vehicles, our night vision goggle systems. We have robots that we can send in, and then, of course, we have our snipers. And there's another incident that kind of changed the rules on that for us as well, and that was Las Vegas a few years ago. The deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at an outdoor country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip.
When I was on the team, we never had overwatch. Large-scale events now, possible targets: Rock 'n' Roll Marathon, Comic-Con. We've had the Major League Baseball All-Star Game here. And so our SWAT team is key to making certain those events stay safe.
Anything that is preventing a team or an officer from getting into an area or a structure, breaching may be required. What we have planned for you is manual breaching and then explosive breaching. For hostage rescue, we would try to use explosive breaching because you want to get in there as quick as possible. The biggest rule as far as breaching is always check the doorknob. It's always going to be faster to open up the door. It sounds funny, but it's true.
Right. This is a door knocker. Weighs about 32 pounds. Woo. All right. So heavy. If you keep your eye on where you're going to attack, which is always going to be that deadbolt, you're going to come back through and just hit it. Okay. So SWAT has arrived. So we'll come up, we'll check the doorknob, and then go ahead and—okay, it's locked. Get your feet set.
All right, I should try that again, I think. All right. Do it like this. I'd set my feet, and then you're coming from the waist and hitting. Knock, knock. There you go. Can you imagine? You hear this noise, and it's me on the other side. Good morning.
So what's next? I think you're going to go do the exciting stuff, doing the explosive breaching now. Oh, we're going straight from this to blowing things up? Yep. Okay. Things escalate quickly around here. They do.
Now we're going to place an explosive charge on the door, which would theoretically provide us an instantaneous opening into the structure. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. This is some Looney Tunes, pump the box, blow it up. Fire in the hole. Fire in the hole. Stand by for breach in five, four, three, two. Positive breach.
Everybody good in here? Yeah. All right. And cut it. Scenario over. That was full-on Wile E. Coyote. We literally had a wire with a button. Blow it up. How does it feel to push the button? You're going to find out in a second. I'm going to be Wile E. Coyote. Yeah. Yes.
Just get in the habit of tucking your head. That way, if there is any overpressure as you initiate the charge, it bleeds over top of your helmet. Okay. Rotate the cam safety up so you're seeing red, and then this is the trigger right here. When you get to one, that's when you press the button. Stand by for breach in five, four, three, two. And then fall in with them. Positive breach.
Oh my gosh, it felt so epic pushing a button like Wile E. Coyote. Bam. My God. Yeah. Okay, it's way cooler than—yeah, yeah. Way, way cooler.
One of the things we're going to have Michelle do this week is rappelling. A little birdie told me that Michelle might have a little bit of fear of heights, so this is going to be interesting. What we've set up here is a scenario where we have a window about 40 feet up, and then we have another one about 20 feet off the ground below us. We're going to get comfortable bounding into that window.
So this is fully safe? Yeah, yeah. We do it all the time. Okay. One of the reasons why we do this, it has real-world applications. We've had some missions where we've had to put officers in a rappel position to close off avenues of escape. But it also goes back to that trust, not only trusting in your teammates, but also trusting in your equipment.
Keep hold of the windowsill. Very good. And just kind of reverse pull-up right into your brake. Good. You've got your brake strand, and you're not going anywhere until you decide that you want to start moving. Release it a little bit, and you can get an idea of how you control the friction. Very good. Good. This is kind of fun, actually.
Good. Window. What do we do? That's okay. Just go ahead and rappel right past it. Good. Nice work. Remember, if there's tension in that hand, tension in your body, it's going to put tension on the line. Good. There you go. Oh my God, that was really good. I didn't look down once.
Now we'll just work on your comfort with that level of friction and your brake, controlling that brake hand. You'll start to go a little bit faster, and we'll work into it. Okay. Now we get to have fun. All right, let's do it. Now we can get our feet on the wall a little bit more, what we call yelling out a little bit. You're going to end up going a little bit faster. Nice. You got it. Keep going. Good. Very nice.
For our next one, we're going to try to bound past the window. You're just going to push a little bit, release down to the bottom of the window. Big bound. Big bound. Nice, nice. Good job.
Now we're going to work on trying to bound into a window. Okay. How do you land like Spider-Man? You can watch me. Oh my God. You got it. Ready? One, two, three. There you go. I can do better. Three, two, one. I braked as I landed in the window. Here we go. Go. Hey. All right. Yes, you nailed it.
A former employee that was recently fired took his boss hostage at this local establishment. The suspect was reportedly armed with a pistol and a rifle. Suspect gave a one-minute countdown before he would execute the hostage. So you and your one or two have arrived at this store, and you are about to make entry. Do you have any questions? So there will be people in there who may be firing back at us? Yeah, there will be live role players in there, and they will be able to shoot simunitions back at you.
What are you doing here? Hey. Hands down. Hands up, hands up. On the ground, on the ground, on the ground. And end scenario. I said hands down.
Stress is starting to take over, which bottled you up getting through that door. Getting bottled up in the doorway is one of the worst possible things you can do. That's called the fatal funnel. The more time you spend there, the likelier you are to get hit. Okay. So you've got to get through that doorway.
Hands up, hands up, hands up. Kill me. He doing. Down on the ground, down on the ground. And scenario over. Scenario over. Weapons on safe. Let them hang.
That's a pretty tough shot. Yeah. So I would say that that was a good job. Okay. But you didn't check the hard corner. And then Stephanie cleared her barricade for you. As you're walking past there, you looked to make sure that it was clear, which is a normal human thing to do, except for when you're in a team environment. That's where the trust issue comes in. When she tells you that is 100% clear, you do not look over there. You just walk right past it like it wasn't even there. Okay. All right. Let me just say, Call of Duty in real life is so hard.
We're going to roll right into some night vision. So all you want to do is you're going to hold that down until it turns on. Good. Yeah. It's like a ghost hunting show. I know. Yeah. The only thing that's in play are barricades and then paper targets. Paper targets only. Shoot until the target goes down. Let's go ahead and put your NODs down. Turn them on. House is hot.
Scenario over. Put them safe. Let them hang. After night vision, the instructors wanted to introduce a concussive explosive device known as a flashbang into the next scenario. But first, they wanted me to experience the blast firsthand.
Questions? No. All right. We are live in the scenario. Get in there. Get in there. Hands up, hands up, hands up. And end scenario.
Had that suspect been in the deep right side, Phil's dead. I know that the flashbangs scare you, but you've got to get in there. You've got to be his two into that room, or else you're doing him a disservice, and frankly, you're doing the hostage a disservice. And once that trust falls apart, the entire thing falls apart from there. Does that make sense? Absolutely.
For Michelle's final challenge, today we're at Strategic Operations, which is owned and operated by Mr. Stu Segall. This is a movie set, and in movies, they try to make things realistic. So in training, it's the same way. So we're going to have a real-life dispatcher, our air support unit helping us out, other SWAT operators with her, everything that we would have in a real scenario.
All right, we are live in the scenario. 31, shots fired, shots fired, shots fired. 4705 Ruffin Road. 315 King, show us in to 12. 321 John, I'm shot in the leg. I think it's broken. I can't walk. 321 John, temper covers him around.
Well, we see the suspect. It looks like he's elevated in a third story. He's only about 60 feet away from the officer who's still taking cover. So the officer is pinned down by an elevated suspect.
Let's move. Let's move. Cover my right, Michelle. Cover my right. He's on the third floor. Looks like he has a view in all directions. Move south toward that white Conex box with the doors on it.
Okay, Michelle, I'm going to move forward to this next piece of cover right now. Can you cover me? Moving. Go. Cover me, Michelle. Cover me so I can move over here.
Suspect looks like he's reloading. Coming up. I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. Okay, I got shot in the leg right here. Right leg, right leg. Get that tourniquet on and pull him back. The right leg, right leg. The suspect is on the second floor.
Now he's moved down to the second floor of that tall structure. Michelle, how's that looking? Good. And then we're going to move him back to a position to cover. Tourniquet has been applied. We're moving him back to position for cover.
We need you to cover us so we can move back and do the extraction. Got it. Okay, Michelle, ready? Three, two, one, move.
Come on, we got to go. We got to go. Get a good grip, get a good grip. We're out in the open. Come on, let's go. Push him back right here, right here. Stick him into the wall right here, right here.
315 King, we're going to move across the alley right here. Our officer in place for position. So we're going to do a two-officer carry. We're going to be faster this way. Okay, we need you to help us. We need you to hobble.
Go, moving. Come on, Michelle, let's go. Moving, moving. Come on, Michelle. Come on, Michelle. Left, go left, go left. Almost there, guys, almost there. Come on, to the right, to the right, by the patrol car right here.
Okay, can we go back? They're setting up containment. We need you to come with me and support one of our snipers in position right now. What floor? We're going up to the fifth floor.
Our target building is going to be the three-story at the end of the road with the camo roof. Do you see it? Yeah, I do. If you can key up the mic and check in, just let them know that we have a sniper in position up here.
Sniper one will be car and gas tiger. We are set up 50 yards off the one-two corner of the target on the fifth floor of the tower.
Our entire job is to stay here and gather intelligence for the team that is going to end up moving up on him. Sniper one, he just threw something out the window.
Why not take a shot now? Well, right now he's not posing a threat to anybody. He's just a lone barricaded suspect. Even though he already shot someone? Yes. The suspect surrenders and comes out to our position.
Chris, come down the stairs. Got to yell louder. Chris, come down the stairs. Put your hands behind your head. Slowly walk back towards my voice. Keep walking. You're doing fine, Chris. Keep it up. You're doing fine, Chris. Keep it up. Stop. All right, go ahead and handcuff him.
Let's move in here. All right, so Rob's number one. Michelle, you're going to be number two. I just follow behind Rob, right?
First floor is clear. Move up. Clear. All clear. Last room, last room. And end scenario, end scenario. Good job. Let's meet back at the initial jump-off location.
Gosh, I'm exhausted. This week at SWAT Academy was a truly eye-opening experience. Thank you so much to SDPD SWAT for making episodes like this possible and for giving me a glimpse into what it takes to be a member of San Diego SWAT. And as always, if you're new here, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. See you guys next time.
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