CAPE POLICE OFFICERS TRAIN FOR ANY SHARPSHOOTING CHALLENGES

Shooting a hostage-taker or a barricaded gunman is something Cape Girardeau Patrolmen Rick Price and William Bohnert hope never to do. But if need be, they're ready.

The two went through five days of sharpshooter training last week at the Springfield Police Department.

"They can hit lollipops small lollipops too," said Chief of Police Howard "Butch" Boyd.

Both are members of the Cape Girardeau Police Department's Special Response Team that is used in high-risk situations.

The situations could involve a barricaded gunman, someone with a hostage, or service of a search warrant that police expect will be opposed. The team is the equivalent of a SWAT team.

Price said the Kansas City-area FBI office SWAT team provided the free training to authorities from Missouri and Kansas. Price, one of six police officers on the response team, said participants shot at targets 100 yards away that included everything from simulated facial shots to firing at what looked like "Tootsie Roll pops."

"In certain areas of the head, (the bullet) would just turn a person off completely," he said. "They wouldn't be able to pull a gun if they had a hostage. They wouldn't even be able to pull the trigger."

Bohnert and Price are the only members of the response team to receive sharpshooter training, Price said. Last week's training, was the duo's first, he said.

Bohnert said he thinks the FBI sees a need to provide the training.

"You never know when you might need it and you hope you never will," he said. "Right now I feel confident that I could handle the job if it's ever put up to me."

Likewise with Price.

"I don't think you'd ever feel comfortable about shooting at another human being," he said, "but I think we'll be able to handle the job."

Price said he and Bohnert have served on the current response team since it was started here in 1987. Boyd said the police department has had a Special Response Team since 1975 or 1976, but that team members have seen more action and received more training in the past five years.

The department has used the team generally in search warrant situations as many as 10 times a year, Boyd said. The team also could be used in connection with the service of search warrants where authorities know weapons are inside a home or where the person involved has a history of violence, he said.

And Price said the team has dealt with a couple of situations where people have barricaded themselves inside their homes.

He said most of the training last week took place at the Springfield Police Department's firing range.

Classroom training covered ballistics, the effect of weather and different types of ammunition on the procedure, the use of items for cover and concealment, and "sniper" psychology and post-shooting trauma, Price said.

He said the training involved a lot of "stress shooting," where participants were forced to run a half mile to mile and do push-ups before firing a shot. The intent was to simulate an actual sharpshooting situation, he said.

"In a real situation your heart's beating a hundred times a minute, your breathing would be irregular, and you'd have to try to control your breathing," he said.

Participants also trained for night shooting, with the range illuminated by the emergency overhead lights of patrol cars.

Price said the training also covered civil liabilities in court. "We have to be able to justify our actions," he added.

Boyd said the police department currently has hunting rifles to use in sharpshooting situations. About 15 years ago, such weapons were popular, but the department now wants to replace them with police-type weapons specially designed for sharpshooting, he said.

"The action is stronger and the barrel is heavier, and they are designed especially for long-range accurate shooting," he said.

"The barrel doesn't heat up as quickly on them. When the barrel gets hot the accuracy suffers."

The department will purchase the rifles with federal drug asset forfeiture funds when they become available, Boyd said. He said the guns likely will cost about $900.

The department now has a .308-caliber Winchester and a .223-caliber Remington for situations where a sharpshooter is needed. Boyd said the department would probably buy standard .308-caliber rifles.

The other members of the Special Response Team are Sgt. Brad Moore and patrolmen Lawrence Fleming, Rick Harrington, and Roger Fields.