INDIAN RIVER SHORES — Behind the gates of John’s Island, in the heart of the “Safest City in Florida,” a million-dollar courtyard home was the site last week of three days of intense police, fire and rescue training that tested officers’ skill and judgment – and stretched the Indian River Shores Public Safety six-man crews to the max.
The exercises pitted triple-trained Shores officers against unknown bad guys and potential assailants, foisting them into the center of domestic disputes and even a hostage situation coupled with a structure fire.
Just as in real life, officers went into the scenarios with very little information, relying upon their training, on their sensory perception and their judgment – but above all relying on the officer at their side.
The purpose of the simulation was to prepare for a worst-case scenario that no one thinks will happen, and along the way to point out both the strengths and weaknesses in the resources the Shores’ residents rely upon to protect life and property in their town.
Two Indian River County Sheriff’s Office SWAT trainers joined the Shores officers, coaching them on how to approach and think about charging into harm’s way.
Shores Sgt. Rick Sarcinello, also a SWAT member with two decades on the job, led the training scenarios over the course of three days, designed to include all three shifts of public safety officers.
“This is the first time we’ve trained to use all three parts of our responsibilities,” Sarcinello said. “You can’t get better training than simulation.”
Per diem Officer Ken Barrett, a retired Sergeant with 30 years of service to the Vero Beach Police Department, including 18 years on SWAT, helped some of the newer officers with tips on entering a building with an active shooter.
Barrett said the training “increased the cohesiveness, and learning how to work together, and being able to transition from police to EMS to fire.”
Other officers like Sgt. Kip Benham showed their leadership when it came to the firefighting portion of the simulation.
Benham said the training was a valuable tool for “finding our weak spots.”
“It was a test of being able to walk out of an extremely stressful situation as a police officer and go immediately into an extremely stressful situation – we wanted to find out, can you go from active law enforcement to active firefighting? We came away with ideas for new tactics to make it better.”
Though the officers transitioned seamlessly from law enforcement to rescue to pulling on bunker gear to fight a fire, the two more firefighters on each shift that Chief Rich Rosell is asking for would have allowed two firefighters to be geared up and ready to enter the house with hoses as soon as the threat was cleared.
Benham said the Shores’ Training Committee and the Weapons and Tactics Committee will review lessons learned from the simulation and come up with ways to better equip officers for the transition from police to rescue to fire operations.
Tony and Babs Tremaine donated the use of their home on oak-lined Clarkson Lane for the training, after two charities had salvaged any of the fixtures and cabinetry that could be reused.
The home, like others of its 1970s era, will soon be razed to make room for a new home built on its prime location looking out on the fairway.
But for three days, Indian River Shores Public Safety and John’s Island Security had the run of the place, with the only limit placed on them that (by law) they couldn’t set the whole house on fire.
After watching a morning’s worth of training, Tremaine fired off an email to everyone he could think of urging other residents to also make their homes scheduled for demolition available to the people who protect them.
Tremaine said he hopes residents will offer up enough homes for the Shores to use for training that they can conduct simulation once a month throughout the year.
“Many homes have been demolished over this time frame and they were not made available for these safety teams to train. I can only assume that people just did not realize how important these training opportunities are and how we all benefit from them.”
