SWAT Teams may be confronted with a situation where a suspect is hiding or barricading themselves within a building and a dynamic and quick entry may jeopardize the safety of officers, the suspect, and innocent parties.

In situations such as these, a slow and deliberate entry/search would be employed. This requires a team to move slowly and quietly through a building, entering and stealthily clearing each room until the suspect is located, at which point negotiations can start, the suspect can be called out, or a dynamic entry can be employed to surprise and take the suspect into custody. However, slow and deliberate entries are very time consuming and still place human officers at risk as they enter and clear rooms in an attempt to locate a hiding suspect using only their sense of sight. This is where the use of a well trained canine comes into play.

Police canines use all of their senses to locate their quarry. The most powerful sense they use is their nose, which is thousands of times more sensitive than a human’s. The next most powerful sense a dog possesses is their hearing, which far exceeds human capabilities. And lastly, dogs use their eyesight to help them in confirming what their eyes and ears have told them-there’s a person hiding in the immediate vicinity. Canine searches can be completed much quicker than human searches, regardless of lighting and environmental conditions, and greatly reduce the risk to human officers.

A good SWAT dog is a proven patrol dog that is quiet and very driven, highly interested in searching for people. The canine must be sociable and comfortable working around other SWAT Team members and in close quarters and tight spaces. Of tremendous importance, is that the dog is very obedient and will obey a handlers commands without hesitation and from a distance. Conversely, SWAT Team members must be comfortable around the dog and be confident in its abilities and trust the handler to set limitations as to what the dog can do.

When using the canine in a SWAT search, the dog is used to clear areas of concern for the human officers. The dog is sent forward of the team on or off lead, to clear hallways, rooms, or blind corners. The canine sniffs rooms it passes, enters open rooms, and clears open areas by using its superior senses. If the dog does not show an alert, the handler will place the dog in a “down and stay” using hand signals or very quiet commands, and the SWAT Team will move up behind the dog and take a new position of cover. The dog, in essence, becomes the “point man” to protect the team from any threat that may suddenly appear. The handler then deploys the canine in the same manner until the suspect is located. If a canine locates and alerts on a suspect, the SWAT Team can now implement their arrest or negotiations plan and the dog may be moved back until it is needed to assist the arrest team. If the suspect remains concealed and refuses to cooperate, the canine may be used to enter the room and physically apprehend the suspect.

SWAT Teams may also choose to use the canine in area searches of large outdoor open areas by providing armed support to the canine handler as they search areas either on or off lead. The use of the canine substantially lowers the risk of a human officer being hurt or killed by walking up on a well hidden suspect and allows for a more thorough search of large areas.

Thankfully, more missions are resolved peacefully and without injury to anyone, than those that are not. It is not uncommon for a suspect to surrender upon hearing the canine alerting to their presence. Most criminals will readily admit, they would much rather take their chances in fighting with a human than to be physically apprehended by a canine.

The Sacramento Sheriff’s Department attempts to utilize several canines on call outs handled by the Special Enforcement Detail (SWAT Team). All of our SSD canines are regularly trained in searching and working with SWAT Teams and all handlers are SWAT trained.

S.E.D. uses canines on search teams, on perimeters in case the suspect tries to flee from an area of concern, and with the primary arrest team in case a suspect tries to fight or run from the arresting officers. In all cases, the use of the canine provides an extra tool for SWAT Teams to assist them in conducting their jobs in a safer, more efficient, and reliable manner.