Local special-response team goes to SWAT competition

A regional special-weapons attack team competed and participated in a competition, SWAT Roundup International, in Orlando last week.

The team included five members of the Cape Girardeau Special Response Team. Some of the competitions included timed courses, shooting-accuracy contests and pulling a downed officer across a small waterway.

The Southeast Missouri team used a pulley system during the downed-officer competition.

"They put that in there to mentally and physically exhaust you," Special Response Team member Richard McCall said of the downed-officer contest. "Not only are you physically exhausted, but you have to do this problem-solving, too."

The Southeast Missouri team finished higher than full-time SWAT teams from Hungary, Brazil, Sweden, St. Martin and Coco Beach, Florida.

"We ranked middle of the pack," McCall said. "That's pretty good for a part-time team."

The Cape Girardeau Special Response Team is used primarily for high-risk warrant arrests, when a suspect is known to have weapons.

The team was involved in serving an arrest warrant Nov. 4 to Sherman Combs, 39, of Cape Girardeau, who had two guns in the house.

Special Response Team members also attended classes that included topics such as combat medicine and a debriefing about the 2012 mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, that left seven

people dead.

bkleine@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3644

Pertinent address: 40 S. Sprigg St., Cape Girardeau