'Our job is to save lives' says trainer of elite unit
Long before daybreak, the Newark police SWAT suits up.
Helmets with communication equipment; safety glasses; heavy, bulletproof jackets; M-4 automatic assault rifles in their hands, muzzles down; Glock .40s strapped to their hips.
If they look like an invading army, well, they are.
On this morning, two dozen SWAT members are joined by officers from the Essex County Sheriff and Prosecutors offices to serve three high-risk warrants.
In a conference room on the second floor of the Newark police Emergency Service Unit on Orange Street, which is also home to the bomb squad, about 60 men and two women are briefed on the "targets."
The details of where they live, and with whom they live, were gleaned from informants, undercover drug buys or surveillance. The SWAT team knows if there are babies or mothers in the house. Or if there are dogs. And if the front yard gates lock. They know the back escape routes and, sure enough, those will be covered. They know what tools to bring: battering rams, sledge hammers, bolt cutters.
They expect guns. Lots of them. Serious, illegal guns. AK-47s. Sawed-off shotguns. SBRs (short-barrel rifles). Drug dealers' guns.
Lt. Rich Casale, the Newark police Emergency Services Unit commander, steps to the whiteboard and reads out rosters from each job and which vehicles the teams will be taking, including an armored car. Within minutes, caravans of black SUVs and vans leave headquarters, about to spring the worst morning of some criminal's life on him.
Everything goes without a hitch. These are announced entries but no one ever answers. They're too busy flushing drugs. So a door flies off its hinges and the SWAT team moves forward in a well-rehearsed ballet of rapid entry and an overwhelming show of black-steel force.
How quick and efficient are they? Consider this startling fact: The Newark SWAT team has not fired a shot in two years. This bears repeating as controversy and unrest over police shootings mount. With all of the guns they encounter and seize - hundreds in those two years - Newark's SWAT officers have not fired a single shot.
Two hours later, the SWAT team is riding through the sandy Pine Barren roads of Fort Dix to resume training for the kinds of jobs they had just done that morning. Watching them in action explains why this team has not fired a shot in two years. Not in big drug busts, not in hostage situations, not in high-risk warrants.
In these situations, the "targets" usually don't want to die. When faced with teams of cops who have one, two, three or four M-4 muzzles trained on them, most go pretty quietly.
But this unit was formed primarily as an anti-terrorism strike force, and its training centers around taking down someone who wants to die. The emphasis is on "one." And no one else.
"We train to limit what the military calls 'collateral damage,' '' said Sgt. Francesco Rossi, the top tactical trainer of the SWAT team. "We're here to save lives. Our job is to get everyone out safe."
Rossi speaks in other military terms. Surgical strike applications. Strict sectors of fire. Systems of containment.
There is a reason for this. Rossi wears two sergeant's hats. One with the Newark police department and one with the U.S. Army's Special Forces. He's done three tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. The first was right after 9/11. The last ended several weeks ago. And he is probably going back.
Rossi brings to the Newark SWAT team the professionalism and precision of the upper echelon of America's military.
"You could send these guys to Afghanistan," said former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who was invited to watch the team's room-to-room training sweeps at the Fort Dix gun and ordinance range Thursday morning.
"They're better than any municipal department I've seen," he said.
He clarified "municipal."
"Yes, big cities, too, like New York, Chicago. Newark is just as good. They've invested in special ops training."
That mostly begins with Rossi, who brings to the unit not only knowledge and access to other special forces' trainers, but also hammers home the idea of practice, practice, practice.
"It's like he (Rossi) says about football," said Sgt. Edgar Padilla, who leads one of the SWAT team's four subteams. "The kids in Pop Warner run the same plays as the pros, but the pros do it better because of all the years of training."
And athleticism, which is part of the team's selection process.
SWAT candidates have to pass strict physical, emotional and psychological tests.
"We have to see how they handle stress," Rossi said.
One testament to the intelligence of the officers is that 18 of them are certified hostage negotiators.
"We always want to negotiate first," Rossi said.
But when negotiation isn't an option, as in a terror attack, marksmanship is critical.
"All these guys can shoot. We prepare for close-quarter battles," Rossi said. He spoke of "firing sectors" where each member is only responsible for one area, so no one is accidentally hit by friendly fire before "engaging the target."
During the training drills this week, most of which were done with live rounds, no officer shot excessively, despite the rapid-fire capabilities of the gun. When Rossi changed the lifelike target so that it held an explosive device, no one hit the hand.
It comes with the discipline to train, train, and train some more.
"If you think you've mastered the technique, if you get complacent," said Sgt. James George, another subteam leader, "if you think you know it all, that's where you've gone wrong."
Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.
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Quadree Richardson Jr. (Courtesy Essex County Prosecutor's Office)
