By Linda Taaffe

Joe Hu/ town crier

Los Altos SWAT and Hostage Negotiation teams practice rescue techniques

The Los Altos Police Department’s SWAT and hostage negotiation teams successfully talked a man into releasing a woman held captive last week in a Los Altos home during a rare hands-on training session.

A vacant house slated for demolition on Portland Avenue provided both police teams the opportunity to coordinate their rescue efforts in a mock scenario that included gunfire and forced entry into the home.

Sgt. Bob Lacey said the homeowner plans to demolish the house and asked police if they wanted to use it for training. Such training opportunities are few and far between, he said. The SWAT team - an acronym for “special weapons and tactics” - had only one other similar opportunity to practice hands-on two years ago at Mountain View High School prior to the demolition of a portion of campus buildings, he added. This was the first time both teams had coordinated efforts in a practice session.

For the seven SWAT members and five negotiation experts at the six-hour training session last Thursday, it didn’t matter whether the man with a gun in the house or the hostage were real or that Mountain View police were portraying the bad guys. The training presented enough real obstacles for them to forget that they were role- playing.

There was no script or planned outcome, Lacey said. Officers didn’t know if the man would give himself up or if they would have to use force.

“We’re walking through it one step at a time,” Lacey said.

Lacey said police responded to the Portland home at 10 a.m. after they received a call that a man had fired shots and taken a woman hostage inside the house.

Police set up a hostage negotiation command center near the home in the department’s DUI trailer, where negotiators used new surveillance equipment to monitor the house. Down the street, the SWAT team, dressed in 40 pounds of full gear, waited for instructions at a tactical command center set up in a trailer.

Police received a list of demands by early afternoon, including one for food. Even the delivery of a burrito and some chips took planning. SWAT members placed the food in an orange bag on a rope. They threw it over the back fence and told the man to come out and get it or they would have to throw it in.

A few hours later, negotiators talked the man into surrendering. Once the man was out of the house, police forced their way in. The man had booby-trapped several doorways and rooms.

They rescued the woman with no injuries.