RAIDING AND ENTERING: SPECIAL POLICE UNIT SHARPENS SKILLS IN CRISIS SITUATIONS

BENTON, Mo. -- Seeing the Cape Girardeau Police Special Response Team practice storming houses is like watching a ballet.

It is a more noble art form -- there is nothing of consequence at risk in a ballet, but perfecting the house entry movements could save an SRT officer's life.

The house entry is a dance -- the officers rushing with guns aimed at opposing angles, covering each other, choreographed, the barrels sweeping for hidden threats; the body-armored officers leapfrogging behind the two point men with bulletproof shields.

To get the movements down right, to not step into your buddy's line of fire, the dance requires practice -- which is how the SRT members spent Wednesday morning, on the homemade shooting gallery on SEMO Law Enforcement Academy Training Coordinator Tom Beardslee's private property in Benton.

Detective Jim Smith yells, "Police! Search warrant! Get on the floor! Get on the floor!"

Corporal Ike Hammonds opens fire on the human torso target silhouette, the sound of his Heckler & Koch MP-5 like the shuffling of a deck of cards fed through a megaphone. The paper target erupts into BB-sized holes. Spent brass casings ting off the concrete deck.

The entry movements are designed to provide team members with the best angles of fire when assaulting the interior of a building, while they themselves remain as protected as possible behind their shields and ballistic vests. Bad guys are ordered to the floor, are absorbed into the wave by one arresting officer and one cover-man while the rest of the team continues to advance.

Special training needed

As the name implies, the Special Response Team handles situations requiring training and hardware not germane to the police patrolman -- hostage standoffs, drug raids, and serving high-risk warrants. The 10-man team is staffed by Cape Girardeau police volunteers looking for a little excitement.

Earlier this month and in November were the most recent times the SRT was dispatched. During those times, the team served two drug-related high-risk search warrants in Cape Girardeau.

"When you come in, we want you to go left, clear this corner, and confront the target," instructs team member Bill Bohnert, a detective. The target is a bull's-eye human torso silhouette.

The "dynamic" house entry -- used during surprise raids -- is fast and violent, differing from the more cautious "stealth" entry. The dynamic entry relies on speed and surprise to overwhelm the bad guys, to take them into custody before they have a chance to retaliate. The ideal is to sweep a one-story residence in six seconds, explains Sgt. Brad Moore.

Gathering at the plywood facade "front door," the SRT officers line up in single-file. They each raise their left hands, signaling that they are ready. Then Moore, at the end of the column, squeezes the shoulder of the man in front of him, the unspoken order to go. The squeeze is passed, in turn, up the chain to the door man, who takes out the front door with a hand-held battering ram -- or, in this practice, officer Brent Steger pantomimes the motion.

For safety, the officers try to stay in hand-to-shoulder contact with the man in front of them. Hopefully, this touch-contact gives shooters a moment to prepare for a partner's misstep.

"When somebody shoots at you, people have a tendency to get up. You don't want to get up if the guy behind you is firing," explains Moore.

Seventy yards from the shooting gallery, Bonhert lies down behind a bipod-mounted Remington sniper rifle. He squints into the scope. The next practice entry will begin with a shot from the rifle -- to simulate the rush after a hostage-taker is sniped.

"We'll know when to go when Smith's head explodes," Hammonds jokes.

"I like to wait, let the guys joke, wait until they all relax," Bonhert whispers, grinning, taking aim at a target silhouette to the far right of the gallery.

The grass and dead leaves wobble in the booming concussion wave of the shot.