The Bellevue Police SWAT team practiced tactical maneuvers on Lake Washington Wednesday afternoon.
The drill paired the SWAT team with the Mercer Island Police marine unit. The cities have a mutual aid agreement where Bellevue provides SWAT services to Mercer Island and Mercer Island shares its marine unit.
The Bellevue SWAT officers practiced jumping from one moving boat to another at 28 mph. They also boarded a boat they had anchored in Lake Washington and searched it.
They did the maneuvers in their SWAT gear, wearing special life vests. The life vests are strong enough to keep the officer and gear at the surface.
"You've got guys with lots of heavy gear on out on the water. You can imagine people fall in the water; that presents a lot of emergencies for us," said SWAT Officer Jim Keene.
We're on Lake Washington with the @BvuePD swat team. At 5pm they train for an incident on the water @KIRO7Seattle pic.twitter.com/BTkmwV3i55
— Alison Grande (@AlisonKIRO7) September 14, 2016
Officer Keene said the SWAT life vests were given to Bellevue Police by the Seattle Police Department when they got new ones.
The team also practiced having officers fall in the water so other SWAT members could pull them out.
Bellevue Police said the training is crucial with so many homes along Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish.
"If a critical incident were to happen in one of those homes, we would be responsible to respond to that," said Officer Keene. He said getting the officers comfortable with the tactics is important to keep them safe. The opportunity to approach an incident from the water gives them more opportunities to protect the public.
The SWAT team trains on various tactics throughout the year.
Cox Media Group
