By CODE 4 K9 | SWAT/K9 Integration & Advanced Police K9 Training

What are your first impressions after watching this video? Intense, stressful, risky? I know what mine were; these guys did a kick ass job. There’s a saying that everyone wants to be a hero until it’s time to do the things that heroes do. If you ask these guys, they’ll tell you that they aren’t heroes; they were doing their job.

Let’s examine this call in more detail. Patrol responded to a call in which the mother of the child (via third party) reported that her infant child was being held hostage by her ex-boyfriend. In addition, she reported that the suspect broke into the home in the late evening hours and shot her dog.

The reason the female was able to leave the residence was that she had convinced her boyfriend to let her talk to a construction crew down the road and get an estimate for the window the suspect had broken to make entry into the home.

When patrol arrived, they heard gunshots coming from inside the home, but hadn’t located the female victim. Instead of making a crisis entry, they attempted to find the female. This was a great call on their part. Why make entry into the home if the female and the child had already separated themselves from the suspect? If indeed the mother and child had seperated themselves, this calls transitions into a barricaded suspect call. What drives this call is information. Information is the machine that drives all calls. The more info you can gather, even in a dynamic, rapidly changing environment, the better your decisions will be.

Ultimately, a patrol officer located the female victim and confirmed that the infant was still inside. By that time, the gunfire had already stopped, although the video gives the impression that there were gunshots ongoing when entry was made. It’s noteworthy to mention that there were a few SWAT operators on scene who had previously attended hostage rescue training at Phoenix PD and breaching school.

The crisis entry team decided to breach the door and conduct a rescue of the child. Without stimulus, they methodically, but quickly searched the home. The standard hostage rescue when making a crisis entry is two per room, unknown layout, unless you have contact with the suspect or hostage. In that case, you would go directly to the threat. I have no issue with the way they conducted the rescue. It never goes the way it does in training. It’s actually a goatrope unless you know where the hostage is.

The team located the child in the master bedroom. Little did they know that the suspect was in the master bedroom closet. It’s pure luck that they didn’t contact the suspect during the rescue, which would have created another layer of complexity in the rescue. Immediately, a member of the entry team grabbed the child, and the entire team quickly evacuated the structure.

The call then transitioned to a barricaded suspect call. In the end, the child survived four gunshot wounds, and the home burned to the ground, probably due to hot gas. The suspect was located with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but actually died from smoke inhalation.

Overall, these guys did a phenomenal job, and they should be commended for their life-saving efforts. If you’re interested in a more thorough debrief, there is one on YouTube under Hostage Rescue Surprise AZ Debrief. Stay safe.