Inside Red River Valley SWAT: Part 1

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When you see a police officer on the streets in the F–M area, he may not be your average police department member.

They could very well be a part of The Red River Valley SWAT Team, who has been very active in the metro this summer.

Murderers, weapons, hostages.

When danger arises, the SWAT team is sent out to face things like shooter threats and specialized raids.

Law enforcement from Cass and Clay County make up the Red River Valley SWAT team.

The first team ever in the United States to cover two states.

Lt. Bill Ahlfeldt said, “Everything we do is planned…everything we do we trained before.”

Members say on average the team is called around 12 times a year.

They’ve hit half that average so far this year.

“No matter what comes at you, you’re going to be able to deal with it,” said Ahlfeldt.

June was a busy month for the SWAT team….

The hunt for Ashley Hunter had the team surrounding a home in Fargo for hours.

That same week the SWAT team was called out for gunshots fired in a garage behind an apartment in South Moorhead.

Thanks to Homeland Security funding, the $250,000 BearCat is used for protection in situations like these.

“This vehicle, along with the robots, has made what we do much safer,”said Ahlfeldt.

Climbing stairs and negotiating this $44,000 robot is a major part of most operations to find suspects.

A robot was used in the Ashley Hunter case, even though he wasn’t in the building.

SWAT Commander Lt. Ross Renner said,”Before we’d send people into those areas to check for people or look for dangerous individuals, now we can send a robot ahead it’s clear or we can locate people.”

When the robot can’t be used, the team has to go in themselves…it takes at least half a year to determine if these officers can handle the job.

“Have you ever felt one of the vests? It’s about 60 pounds, 50 to 60 pounds. The longest call out I’ve been on has been 15 hours. So you could be out 15 hours with this gear,”said Ahlfeldt.

The smell of bread is gone from this old bakery truck which has been redesigned for the team to gather and work on the missions.

Looking into the van Ahlfeldt said, “It’s gets pretty full especially with gear.”

To be the most efficient at their job, SWAT comes back with things they’ve learned.

Like using the robot in the search for Hunter.

“There’s a case that we keep that robot in and we threw the case in here, so that took almost all of our back so that’s one of the things in our critique….just little stuff like that,”said Ahlfeldt.

So how has the team done with these recent cases?

“We did very well. They followed their training and procedures and as a result we were successful and when I say successful what I mean is everybody comes home safely and no one is hurt,” said Lt. Renner.

Two counties, 30 officers, one team…working to protect you.

This is your Red River Valley SWAT Team.

Erin Lisch KVRR News

Going into these hostile environments, what’s it like to be a SWAT member?

We will give you that look tomorrow night on KVRR News at 9.