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SALT LAKE CITY -- It's day two of SWAT school for a couple dozen police officers. It's a grueling, six-day training designed to test their physical, emotional and mental endurance.
Right now the SWAT hopefuls are working on climbing and repelling at the Salt Lake Fire Training Tower. They are exhausted from what's already been 38 hours of training.
It started Sunday at 2:30 a.m. with a 7-mile run, then they performed push-up formations in mud and endurance exercises in a swimming pool that went until midnight. They did while wearing Kevlar vests and helmets that weigh 15 pounds.
A few hours of sleep, and they were back at it, proving to their instructors they have what it takes to a member of the SWAT team.
There is something unique about this SWAT school: two women recruits. SWAT trainee Tiffany Whiting said, "It's a personal goal. I've wanted to do it. It's tough. Being able to do it is good. For me and the other female, it shows that we can do it."
Thirty-two recruits started the school on Sunday; eight have dropped out so far: three were injured, one had a family emergency and another four dropped out. A total of 24 hopefuls remain.
Capt. Tim Doubt, with the Salt Lake City Police Department, said, "They are physically tired, mentally tired. Day 2 is kind of the day where we've had everyone who's going to drop out. We don't have too many drop-outs after day two."
They've got many more tasks ahead of them in the next four days.
They've completed an obstacle course, endurance exercises in a pool and Monday's climbing and repelling exercise.
They can look forward to live fire exercises, forced-entry exercises and still to come Monday night: chemical munitions training.
The goal is to graduate from the school with a certificate of completion. They will then be put on an eligibility roster, and when a position on the Salt Lake SWAT Team opens up, they will be in line for it.
There are some recruits from other agencies here as well, working to get on their SWAT team.
E-mail: corton@ksl.com
