Alton Police Department          
Tactical Response Team

Team History

In todays society, narcotics related search warrants of places inhabited by well armed individuals, armed barricaded subjects, and hostage situations are no longer just a big city problem.  These problems and others are finding their way into smaller communities. The need for a specialized team of officers to counter and solve these types of incidents was recognized by the City of Alton, Illinois, a town of 34,000+, in the St. Louis, Missouri metro area.   Our Narcotics Enforcement Unit’s increase in drug related search warrants, the infiltration of violent Chicago based gangs into our community and a number of hostage and barricade incidents, cased alarm and taxed the manpower capabilities of our uniformed patrol division.

In response to these trends, in January 1996, the Alton Police Department formed a Tactical Response Team (TRT) to deal with the increase in high risk warrant service, hostage incidents, and barricaded and/or violent armed individuals.  Our philosophy was to train, equip, and maintain a unit that could effectively resolve these incidents by gaining maximum control with minimum force.

TEAM MAKE-UP
Our current 13 member team is made up of officers from throughout the department who are on-call should a situation arise.  The team consists of a Team Commander, who is an administrative staff officer responsible for the overall operation of the team, it’s training and equipment; a Team Leader who is responsible for all facets of the actual tactical operation; an Assistant Team Leader who serves in a similar capacity as the Team Leader and commands one section of the team should it become necessary to separate the team into two sections; eight Tactical Officers and two Crisis/Hostage Negotiators.  Two of our tactical officers also serve as the teams precision marksmen and two are certified police medics.  Officers selected for the team must be highly motivated and a devoted team player.

Currently the teams most time consuming function is high risk warrant service.  However the team trains to be prepared for a variety of situations including hostage/crisis negotiation-hostage rescue, sniper situations, and  building/vehicle assaults.

TRAINING

Team members train monthly as a team as well as receiving various individual training, with the precision marksmen receiving separate monthly training for maintaining and honing there marksmanship skills.  Training ranges from physical fitness to a variety of call-out scenarios using simunitions and role players, which allow us to incorporate our hostage /crisis negotiators into the training.

EQUIPMENT

The department purchases and issues all team equipment including load bearing body armor, ballistic shields/helmets, radios w/headsets, and various other uniform items.  Team uniforms vary from basic “tactical black” to camouflage pattern.

All team members carry the department issue Glock 23 .40 caliber pistol.

All team members are also qualified with the:
HK MP-5 9mm sub-machine gun

Ruger Mini-14 5.56mm rifle

A variety of distraction devices

And various chemical agent and less-lethal impact munitions delivery systems.

The teams precision marksman are qualified with the:

Reminigton 700

The team was extremely lucky to have a 1997 Ford F-350 Box Truck donated by a local hospital ambulance service.  We are in the process of converting the vehicle for use, so stay tuned for picture.

The Alton Police Department Tactical Team is a proud member of: