SWAT TEAM USES VACANT HOUSES
Three homes were acquired earlier this year for road realignment project
HATFIELD TWP. » On a sunny Wednesday afternoon, the sun shone on three houses on Orvilla Road in Hatfield Township, birds chirped, butterflies hovered over the grass — and SWAT team operators closed in, swiftly and silently, with purpose.
“Police, search warrant, open the door,” one shouted, pounding on the front door hard enough to shake the frame of the house, before another officer forced open the door, and about two dozen more poured into the house, scanned the front room, fanned out through the rest of the house. Seconds later, after finding every room empty, they returned to the living room for evaluation.
“We’re always looking for different floor plans, different venues to practice our techniques, whether they’re schools, commercial business, houses, apartments — anything we can use,” said Jay Ciarlello, Deputy Commander of the Montgomery County Central Region SWAT Team.
The three houses where the SWAT team practiced on Wednesday afternoon were all located just north of Cowpath Road along Orvilla Road, on proper-
ties acquired by Hatfield Township earlier this year as the township works toward realigning the offset intersection of Cowpath and Orvilla.
After entering the middle house, SWAT team members spread out into all of the rooms throughout the house, checking in closets and other potential hiding spaces, then regrouping to hear instructions from Ryan Devlin, the Lansdale Police lieutenant and SWAT squad leader, on which officer handles which responsibility in certain situations.
“Normally, the houses we get, the ceilings are falling in, and they’re moldy, and the floors are ready to cave in. When we get a house like this, it’s like, ‘Yay,’” Devlin said, with a fist pump and a grin.
Ciarlello, a Hatfield Detective Sergeant in addition to his SWAT team responsibilities, said the team practices at least twice a week in whatever empty or unused buildings they have permission to use, and are always looking for more. Residents or property owners can also volunteer to act as hostages, and the team can deploy different capabilities, like explosives or stun gas, depending on how far the property is from any others.
“We have explosive breaching capabilities to blow doors down. We wouldn’t do that here because of the traffic and the neighboring houses, but if we were farther back, or somebody calls us and says ‘We’re going to be tearing our house down, I don’t mind if they come in.’ We’re just looking for training venues,” Ciarlello said.
Ciarlello said he and the team were thankful to Hatfield staff, particular Township Manager Aaron Bibro, for allowing the tactical team to use the houses as the township awaits word on a request for grant funding to complete the road
realignment project. Bibro said Wednesday the township’s staff, and the board of commissioners who voted to acquire the parcels, were happy to help.
“The commissioners saw the acquisition of these homes as a way to not only prepare for the future realignment of this dangerous intersection, but also an opportunity for emergency response training for police and the fire companies, in order to maximize the public benefit,” Bibro said.
Before the team entered each house, paramedics walked through each, looking for any potential trip hazards or off-limits areas, like the flooded basement of one of the three houses used Wednesday. Once the entire team had entered all three houses, the roughly two dozen SWAT team members discussed how far one officer should go before the next enters, how many should take each room, and the latest policies and procedures
for whether a rear patio must be knocked on if it’s glass, or a screen.
“And then they argued about case law,” one member joked, before the entire team then split into three random squads, one to enter each of the three houses simultaneously.
“We’ll give them different scenarios and have the come in with, one’s a hostage situation, one’s a search warrant, come through different entrances, the different houses, mixing up guys and girls,” Ciarlello said.
“Sometimes our police interns or new probationary officers come out to role play. It’s all to get a better understanding of what the SWAT team does,” he said.
Anyone with properties the Montgomery County SWAT Team Central Region can use for training is asked to contact Ciarlello via the Hatfield Township Police Department at (215) 855-0900.