In December of 2013, it was identified that there was a growing need for a specialized group of police officers to focus on the safe execution and containment of planned and unplanned high risk situations. During past high risk incidents such as CDSA search warrants, weapons calls, armed and barricaded, the general patrol officers were required to respond to and deal with these situations without any specialized equipment or training. Any specialized support such as the RCMP Emergency Response Team, was a few hours from local deployment.
As a result , the Regional Support Tactical Team (RSTT) was formed as a joint specialized unit compromised of 9 members from the Altona, Morden, and Winkler Police Services. The RSTT has partnered with the Winnipeg Police Tactical Support Team (TST) for training needs and skill development. After completing the initial training, the RSTT with the assistance of the Winnipeg TST have identified training and equipment needs for the RSTT. The RSTT is now mandated to execute all search warrants, CDSA search warrants and firearm search warrants in their respective service areas.
The RSTT became operational in December 2014 and within the first five months, the team was utilized on four successful CDSA search warrants and one firearms related warrant. The benefits of having a dedicated team who specialized in safe tactical approaches and entries has paid off with each warrant execution. Investigators were able to focus their attention on the investigation at hand, while the supporting members were able to carry out their assigned duties, knowing that the RSTT had secured the area and were remaining on scene to assist until the job was done.
One of the first training initiatives of the team was to visit each of the schools within the serviced communities. The intent was to become familiar with the school locations (16 in total) and layouts. The team then met with representatives of each police service who had been tasked with their school lock down procedures. The team felt it was important to be utilized in the event of an unplanned high risk situation. With these training initiatives, the RSTT has been able to help identify ways to provide a safer response to school situations, which will ultimately benefit the students and staff.
The RSTT will make an impact by providing a safe support unit for general patrol officers as well as provide an organized response to critical incidents.