K9/SWAT Integration with LASD-SEB

The topic of K9 integration into SWAT teams has become one that is talked about a lot at conferences and it appears that the culture around K9 integration is changing. I wanted to sit down with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Special Enforcement Bureau, who's been integrating K9s into SWAT since the 1990s and now views K9s and SWAT operators as a single team with different capabilities. So, as a result, for this episode, I sat down with John Montenegro and Steve Williams from Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Special Enforcement Bureau to go through their K9 integration, how they do it, and debrief a few of their cases to illustrate their use of K9s, and to also talk about lessons learned integrating K9s into SWAT. I hope you enjoy my conversation with John Montenegro and Steve Williams from LASD-SEB.

My name is Jon Becker. For the past four decades, I've dedicated my life to protecting tactical operators. During this time, I've worked with many of the world's top law enforcement and military units. As a result, I've had the privilege of working with the amazing leaders who take teams into the world's most dangerous situations.

The goal of this podcast is to share their stories in hopes of making us all better leaders, better thinkers, and better people.

Welcome to The Debrief!

Jon Becker: Guys, thanks for being here. I appreciate you doing this.

John Montenegro: Thanks for having us out.

Jon Becker: Why don't we start individual bios, Johnny?

John Montenegro: My name is John Montenegro. John spelled the correct way. Entering my 32nd year with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Like everybody else, I started off in the academy in 1994. Post-academy, I was assigned to my first custody assignment. So, I spent just shy of four years at North County Correctional Facility up at Wayside. You get three selections of patrol stations. I was fortunate enough in ‘99, I went out to Century Station, which is South Central. Spent about 11 months post-training at Century Station and then we took over Compton Station in late 2000. And so I transferred down there with my radio car partner and then I spent just shy of a decade at Compton, all of it on patrol. I did the FTO thing for about 5 years, trained 25-26 trainees. And then very fortunate enough in 2010 I was made the selection process for SEB, transferred to SEB and I spent the last 15 plus years there. Having worked every level at SEB. Started off as a seventh man. Eventually worked my way down to the scout of the team. I ran Blue Team for about six years and then as I got close to that the end of the road, saw the light at the end of the tunnel, I stepped down a little over a year, year and a half ago, passed the team over to my backup scout, Alex, kind of went to the back of the stack, got to do some of the fun stuff again. Ramming doors, picking gates. And then not only do I see the light at the end of the tunnel, I feel the warmth at the end of the tunnel. I'm getting pretty darn close. Almost 32 years, half my career, have been spent at the special enforcement bureau. All of it was on the Blue Team, minus two months that I helped the Gold Team out when their scout had back surgery. And then, the majority of that, 11 years in patrol and just four years of custody. So, patrol the whole time.

Jon Becker: While we're talking about the term “scout” is a unique SEB terminology. So talk to me about what a scout is relative to other teams.

John Montenegro: So, the way we're structured, so people understand how SEB is structured when we start talking back and forth, is this: SEB is an umbrella bureau for five different details. It wasn't always five. It started off as three details-- two details, then a third and then we added two more later in a way. So when you speak of SEB, you have Special Enforcement Detail which is the SWAT side. That is six teams of eight: seven deputies and one sergeant. So 48 at full strength. We're identified by color. So blue, black, gold, gray, red, and tan are how we identify our colors. And then every team's structured the same way. You have the seventh man, which is the newest guy. He's the one that's going to be in the learning process, containment, driving armor. Eventually work your way down. Fifth, sixth. The fourth man is a really critical spot for us. That's our intel guy. He's the one training new guys. Probably the hardest job I ever had was being the fourth man because you're busy on everything. Then you go to backup scout and scout. So scout and backup are probably the two most experienced guys on the team by far. And then we have a team leader who's kind of third in the stack. We get a mix of team leaders. So some team leaders have had prior SWAT experience. Some team leaders did not. So really the tactical element, the decision making in terms of tactics and application of tactics come from the scout and backup scout and it's filtered through the team leader as well. He's not out of the loop at all. But the guys with the most experience are certainly a scout and backup.

Looking at my career, I think the last time I checked I had over a thousand operations in my almost 16 years there. You can't replicate that in training. So the scout really kind of runs the day-to-day aspect of stuff. The team leader is there managing personalities. He's our front-line supervisor for any uses of force and more importantly he's really the buffer on operations between the scout and backup scout and the command staff because we have a lot going on. We're making decisions and we're trying to apply tactics to this thing as it's ongoing. I'll tell my team leader, hey, this is what I want to do and I'm moving to other stuff like placing people in containment spots and kind of figure out what I want to do. He's running the stuff by the command staff to get approval for the next phase we want to go to.

Scout was one of the greatest jobs I ever had, and probably the fifth man was probably one of the greatest jobs I ever had because I got to be on all the entry stuff. I got to play when all the fun stuff happened. I wasn't so critical to the team that I could go to training anytime I wanted, so, they sent me all over the United States to train. Our team has a collateral of weapons and firearms training. So, we run all the shooting programs. So, I was all over the country going to shooting schools and instructor schools and learning as much as I could to bring back to SEB as a whole.

Our true name from the SWAT side is SED (Special Enforcement Detail).

Next up in the evolution, were created in 1958. More of a saturation patrol team. Like every station had an SEB component. No call car, two partners kind of went out there and hit the hot zones. SWAT teams didn't exist at the time. This pre-the ‘60s. Yeah. We had all kinds of civil unrest. So you had kind of just a saturation patrol team initially. Then in 1966/1967 they started an emergency services detail which is ESD. That's another component of it. ESD does some gnarly stuff. These are all deputy sheriffs. Currently they are all former SWAT operators or K9 handlers. They man Air Rescue 5 which most people have seen on the news rescuing people off the side of the mountain. So they're all paramedic trained. They do swift-water rescue, mountain rescue, helitack. They are in essence a civilian version for us of PJs.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

John Montenegro: So next up after ESD was K9 Services Detail which started in 1979 and Steve will kind of give you their history on that. And then 2017 we merged with the bomb squad which is now called arson/explosives detail and HazMat detail. So SEB comprised all those five details. So most people when you say SEB they'll recognize the SWAT side K9 ESD because that was the main component for such a long time but you have the bomb techs and the HazMat and what's interesting is how we're kind of structured versus kind of the rest of the country we are all integrated. So we train with arson explosives to work in high-risk bomb-related incidents where they can search with us and they understand our search methods. The same thing with HazMat suits: we can work in chem suits, chem-bio suits if the mission calls for that. So it was nice to have that all under one umbrella under one structure. Kind of working together as teammates, not so much separate from details. So that kind of works well for us from that standpoint.

Jon Becker: Yeah. I think one of the things that is unique having dealt with SEB my entire career and dealing with teams all over the country is SEB is more integrated than a lot of other units are. It's it's when you talk to guys in a team it's whether they refer to are the K9 guys one of us, or are the bomb guys one of us versus oh yeah it's the bomb guys they're over there SEB is more integrated than anybody else in the country that I work with in the mindset that's part of the reason I wanted to sit down with you guys is I think that is part of the reason that K9 ends up integrated is it's just part of your culture right it wasn't grafting a K9 unit on to a SWAT team. It was just, creating a SWAT deputy with a dog. So, Steve, walk me through your kind of history.

Steve Williams: So I graduated from the academy in 2004. I actually started working for a small municipality police department in East LA. I worked patrol there. I lateral to the sheriff's department in 2011. Like a typical sheriff, I started in custody. Worked at NCCF, did that for a couple years. I went to Lakewood Station, worked patrol there for a little over three years, and worked on a special assignment team there. It's kind of like what SEB used to be like a no-call car crime suppression team. And then I was fortunate enough to go to SEB in 2017. When I initially went to SEB, I was part of the Special Enforcement Detail on the SWAT side. I wassigned to the Red Team. I did that for a little over a year and then a K9 position opened up and I slid over to the K9 side of the house.

Jon Becker: So, how long have you been doing the dog then?

Steve Williams: I've been with the K9 side of the house since 2018 and I'm now the lead trainer for our K9 unit. Got it. Okay. So, let's talk about the history of SEB's K9 program. We got kind of a brief overview of the SWAT side of it. Give me an overview of the K9 side of it. So, the K9 unit for the sheriff's department started in 1979 and it goes all the way back to you have and we still do have resident deputies that live out in the outskirts like Lake Los Angeles, Gorman, Catalina Island, places that are far away from backup, especially back in that time. So they initially were given dogs as they now have a backup with you all the time. With some success that they had, the special enforcement bureau decided to start a K9 centralized K9 unit to support all the rest of the patrol stations. So that was kind of forward thinking at the time. Most police agencies that have K9s, it's a patrol function. You're a patrolman. You're responding to patrol calls and you have a K9 there that you can use as needed. So, right off the get-go, the sheriff's department had a centralized K9 unit to go all over the county whenever a K9 was needed. Doesn't look like we did today. It would be like, "Oh, I need a K9." So, they would send one K9 handler and his dog.

As that progressed and they started to see the success that they were having there, it goes into the, John, do you want to talk about the kind of the catalyst that kind of brought the dog into the SWAT world?

John Montenegro: Yeah. So, this the 1980s. This when hats were worn backwards and, SWAT work was really starting to start up pre 1984 Olympics. So I would say if you ask anyone in Los Angeles, the 1984 Olympics is probably one of the similar events that changed how we did stuff.

Jon Becker: Oh yeah.

John Montenegro: Preparing for the Olympics and all the counterterrorism of the 60s that was going on. I think the FBI is just starting HRT around that time around 83. And April 16th in 1983, Laurel Smith was killed on a warrant service operation. He had made a window entry and the suspect had moved around through a Jack-and-Jill bathroom and shot Laurel in the back of thead. To their credit and I didn't learn this until we had we did a built a memorial wall at our range and we had speakers come out from that generation and they said, at that time when Laurel Smith was killed they took a step back and said nothing's off the table how can we do things differently and safer and better and that's one of the things that led to K9 integration into our program.

When I went out to patrol in '99 Steve was correct it was so separate but equal. K9 handlers came out in class B uniforms. They weren't in SWATs or anything like that. They would send one handler out and patrol officers would search with the K9 looking for whatever suspect were looking for. Fast forward 2005/2006 things changed and I'll have Steve kind of cover that aspect of it.

Steve Williams: So as time it started in the '9s, the SWAT team started seeing the benefit of the K9. You have a barricaded suspect, we try our chemical agents, we do things, he's still not coming out. It was another tool in the toolbox that they had some success with. And as they got more and more success with it, they said they kind of made the decision that well, if we're going to use these K9 guys all the time, they need to understand the SWAT world more. And that's when they made the initial step towards the integration and they started sending K9 handlers through SWAT school. So, still completely separate testing process. You come to SEB as a K9 handler, you get your dog, you get off training, at some point during your training process, you would just go through SWAT school.

John Montenegro: And back then there was a you chose, you chose your career path. So when you turned your application at SEB, you stuck it in the K9 pile and you stuck or you stuck it in the SWAT pile. You didn't stick two applications and you never jump from one pile to the next pile. So you made your decision kind of like either I'm going to go the SWAT side and I'm either I'm going to go to the K9 side and that was kind of like a definitive road that you were taking in your career.

Steve Williams: Yeah. And as that progressed and now they're using multiple dogs and we're developing more modern tactics and search tactics and how we're using the dog to search behind when we're looking for suspects. The other thing that really brought the integration together is when you start looking at whether it's a search or a barricade, they're all tactical incidents. They all have an armed suspect or potentially armed suspect that needs to be brought into custody. And when you start breaking it down, okay, so whether he's in this house and he's barricaded, okay, that's a tactical incident that's the SEB, the SWAT side's bread and butter. They can solve that problem using K9 as a tool. K9 handlers were out looking for people all the time. And now you have that tactical incident of that armed suspect that ran from patrol or maybe even shot at patrol, wherever that case may be. And now he's loose in a neighborhood. That's still just as dangerous as a suspect. Some would argue more dangerous than the suspect that's in a house that we know where he's at.

So looking at that scenario as a tactical incident, you need a tactical deputy to solve that problem. So the more tactical training you give those cannon handlers that are out conducting that operation, the better they're going to be able to do it. So once you get into the mid 2000s and approaching the late 2008, 2009 time frame, we actually took it one step further.

So now as a K9 handler when you come to SEB your first six-months you're assigned to a SWAT team and at that point you need to learn the basics of being a tactical deputy. You want our movement style, our shooting standards, how we communicate with each other, the basic goals and SOPs for solving a tactical incident. Once you complete that six-month period and you get the sign off on the SEB side of like, "Yeah, he's a basic tactical deputy where now as an SEB deputy, you start moving into more advanced training on the SEB side. Now, we're going to move you into, okay, now we're going to pair you with a K9 and start going to K9 school and that type of thing.

John Montenegro: Yep. We saw that in patrol like so 2005/2006 time frame it was no longer the solo deputy coming out. They were coming out in a package. There's like one handler, three additional handlers and a team leader coming out and they were handling the search aspect themselves. They were coming out with more of a search package. And then by the time I got to the bureau 2010, that integration had happened. I've only known excellent integration between the SWAT and K9 site between the two. Our experience from that standpoint, my eyes were opened up, probably my early career there, like about 2011 when we had OSS deputies get shot. I was new enough that I got to go out there, but I didn't have to get all the equipment. So, I kind of got to be on the search teams. And we had a deputy shot, a massive search area. So, I got to watch as part of the search team. Whose handle is that? It's a K9's handle. K9 was in charge of looking for an armed suspect that just shot deputies over in the Firestone area. All 16 team bureau activation. So, all six teams were out there. I think at the time we probably had 12 handlers. Three sergeants had 15 at the time. So, six different search areas going and when were on the outside of structures, K9's just running the show and we're supporting them.

We get to a structure that has an open door so that we need to search. I watched my scout step up to the door. K9 slid back behind him and now SWAT side and became the lead activation of that. Soon as we got done searching that structure, K9's back in charge and leading the parade down the street. That's what I marveled at. It was so seamless and no conversation between, no passing of the torch. It's just, "Hey, this our portion. This your portion." We worked together as a team. And that night, we end up getting all three suspects in custody in that massive search area. And that from that standpoint, I tell people all the time my experiences, "I would give up any technology you brought me today before I ever gave up a K9". They're just things they can do that no one else can.

Jon Becker: Yeah. It's very interesting and this part of the reason that I wanted to have this conversation. Is it culturally you guys have a kind of a culture of centralized expertise, right? Like there is a deputy that is really good at this thing and there's another deputy that's really good at this thing and it isn't like "Oh well SWAT's better than K9 and K9's better than HazMat". It's just different expertise and I think that having spent as much time with you guys as I have that handoff is such a seamless process and that's that's what you don't see in other places is this mindset of like well K9's going to come but SWAT's going to tell K9 to do. It's interesting how quickly you pass that back and forth based on expertise.

John Montenegro: Yeah. I mean, you're always better off pulling in the same direction and everybody being on the same page. But I think that has to come from a level of trust and it's like we select the right people. We know they're trained. I have confidence in what they do. They should have confidence in what we do on this side. And Stephen can get into their training aspect. I'm a dog lover. I own three animals. They are savages. I should not own a police K9 because all they'll find is pup cups and sausages.

Jon Becker: Oh yeah.

John Montenegro: They do a fantastic job on what they do and I trust that their dogs are going to do what they're supposed to do and how we can work between each other. He can get into the aspect of dog training that we have no idea on our side how they do it because they'll show up with the dog and dog's name's Jello and two weeks later, like "Hey, where's Jello at?" Oh, Jello got sent back because he couldn't do X, Y, and Z. And so they have a really stringent portion of what they do on that side.

Jon Becker: So, okay, because that's actually something I want to pick up and kind of look at for a minute. The sheriff's department has a variety of different types of dogs. This K9 unit is the apprehension K9 unit and you are the K9, the only apprehension unit in the entire Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Clarify that for me a little bit.

Steve Williams: So, the units are always changing, so don't hold me to the numbers, but I believe we have about 75ish K9s in the department. All of our dogs are single-purpose which is a kind of a break for most agencies. Most agencies have a patrol dog that is an apprehension dog and either a narcotics dog or a bomb detection dog or whatever. At the sheriff's department, we have our narcotics unit that has narcotics dogs. We have our gang unit that has gun and narcotics detection dogs. We have our County Services Bureau that has bomb detection dogs. We also have narcotic and gun detection. We have our Jail Services dogs that detect pruno narcotics, cell phones, things like that. We also have our Transit Services Bureau that are federally funded dogs. So, we have tons of dogs across the department. But going back to what I mentioned earlier, when we're using a if we have that high-level incident that we're going to use a K9 to try and locate somebody, that's a tactical incident. So, we want a tactically trained deputy to be the one in charge of conducting that search.

So, the sheriff's department made the decision to bring all apprehension dogs under the Special Enforcement Bureau. It's a little different from how a lot of agencies do it, but we want to bring that level of expertise to those types of incidents.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I think this kind of a sheriff's mindset of centralizing expertise, right? That's like transit services that sniff trains for a living. Make those dogs that one purpose and make that unit that's what they do, right? Whereas, other parts of the country, other agencies you see they'll have,12 dogs, but the 12 dogs would be all over the county. Here, all 12 dogs are centralized inside of SEB.

Steve Williams: Right. And that actually even goes to our selection process. I, as I've moved up in seniority at the unit, I'll get phone calls or emails from deputies all the time that are like, "Hey, I really love dogs. I want to come out and test for K9". And usually my response to them, okay, yeah, give me a phone call. And I, I ask them a few questions. And most of the time I quickly explain what my job actually is. And they go, "Oh, I'm gonna test for detection." K9. Yeah.

Jon Becker: You want to be a sniffy dog, not a SWATty dog.

Steve Williams: Yeah. Specifically for the apprehension dogs, our K9 Services Detail at SEB. I want somebody that wants to be a tactical deputy that this dog thing is kind of cool, too. But first, I need somebody that wants to be part of the tactical operations, realizes that being on call is now your life. You're going to be getting called out all hours of the day, night, it doesn't matter, and when you start explaining that to some people, that's not going to work with everybody's lifestyle.

Jon Becker: Your today started yesterday.

Steve Williams: My yesterday started at 6 a. M. And I was on a barricade all night and came straight here.

Jon Becker: So yeah, I'm on 28 hours. Exactly.

Steve Williams: That's what I signed up for and that's what I wanted to do. So, when I have that patrol guy that hits me up and usually it's the people that are interested in the unit are the people that are getting us work. They're out there where they're working in their patrol station and they're out there chasing the bad man and when the bad man runs for them, they set up their containments and they request us. When I start seeing the same faces over and over, I go, "Hey, have you if you really like chasing bad guys, I got a job for you."

As a matter of fact, one of our newest handlers, that's if you talk to him, he had no interest in dogs or K9 at all. It wasn't until multiple call outs that we said, "Hey, dude, you want to come out to training sometime and see what this about?" He comes out to train, he goes, "Oh, this kind of cool. I think sure enough, he decided to test and now he loves it. He's like he's all about, running his dog and doing this chasing bad guys and, it's a great fit.

Going back to our selection process, that's the first thing that we look for. I want a good policeman. I want somebody that can be a thinker, somebody that can look at a situation and problem solve. Think like, okay, the bad guy he did this, he goes this, well, it makes sense. Did he go from this yard to this yard? What does that pot that's knocked over mean? Does that mean that he used that pot to jump over that fence? Things like that are what we're looking for. Yeah.

John Montenegro: No different from us. We're all buying for the same candidate. The difference is lifestyles. You're going to be attached to a 90 lb fully thinking animal on its own as part of your lifestyle, right? All my equipment I can leave in the car, go in the house, don't have to look at it again till the next call out. They have another life that they're taking care of. And that may not be for everybody, but they're like gypsies. These guys are all over the county all night long. What do you guys average 400 some?

Steve Williams: Yeah, I think last year were just over 300 call outs.

Jon Becker: A call out for you guys is two dogs.

Steve Williams: Usually we roll the on duty package would be four dogs and a team leader.

Jon Becker: Oh Wow. Okay. Yeah. So, so you're bringing I mean you're not going to obviously use four dogs at the same time, but you're bringing four K9 services deputies, correct? Who are tactically trained and now four dogs that you can choose from.

Steve Williams: Yeah. Depending on the type of call and sometimes we have a newer dog that you're like, "Okay, this would be a good call for a newer dog to get some experience. We'll use the newer dog." Or sometimes you look at the situation, you go, "We want a more experienced dog for this one." And then as we get to bigger more complex area searches, that's where we can rely on the SEB side. And that's again relying on integration. Now I have four handlers that we can split up and search four different areas supported by SEB deputies and we can knock out blocks much faster and using search techniques that try to prevent the guys from being able to run and hop walls and loop behind in the areas we've searched and stuff like that.

Jon Becker: So just to clarify like if so let's say patrol is chasing somebody they lose him they have him contained they think they're going to call you guys you're going to come out with a dog package.

Steve Williams: Yes.

Jon Becker: Now let's assume that transitions into something bigger, a barricade or the guy he rises to a certain threat level then when they push the button they're going to push the K9 services button and the SEB button at the same time.

Steve Williams: Correct.

Jon Becker: And so now you're going to get a SWAT package and a K9 package working together.

Steve Williams: That integration goes back to as I mentioned before a K9 deputy is going to start on the SWAT side because just based on the hours that we work and most of the K9 work we get is more in the evening hours. It's just statistics, that's what happens. The SWAT guys tend to work more in the day-shift hours. So, there's been times where we've had a K9 area search that's, SWAT guys land on first and I want them to be able to set up, check the outer containment and start getting information for me and vice versa. In the middle of the night, there's a lot of times that K9 details where we land on that barricade first and we can establish arrest teams, start containing the location and start getting info for these guys.

John Montenegro: Yeah. So, one of the critical things for us he's right, we're called rulers of the night, but we're really kind of rulers of the day-shift hours now.

Jon Becker: those are the early morning.

John Montenegro: Yeah. Light day, early traffic, kind of what we look at. Their work is none of our work's ever on our own. We're either being called out to work or someone asks us to high-risk warrant service. They're being called for high-risk searches. But when they get out there before us, they are fantastic at because this what they do for a living, sifting through all the information till I have intel. Where do we really think he is? Do we really think he's in the containment? Do we really think he's in the house? Who is it? So, by the time I come out as a scout, I'm already formulating my tactical plan because they're out there giving me a bird's eye view of exactly what's going on because everyone's been a policeman. You get all this information coming out and you get there and it's nowhere near what you were told initially. So, kind of example of that is 2016, Lakewood Station. They're running a DUI checkpoint, just a normal published DUI checkpoint. A car is approaching the DUI checkpoint and shoots around him and trying to evade from the DUI checkpoint. So you have a motor officer, give chase. The guy makes a quick left, turns another left, trying to flee the area, but he ends up in a dead end cul-de-sac. So the motor officer is in pursuit. The suspect gets out and now it's a gunfight. The motor officer was hit in both arms. Continues to defend himself, does a fantastic job defending himself. The suspect continues to flee. So I got a one down deputy now injured in both arms. The suspect jumps a fence, forces his way into a house. So now you have plenty of people at the DUI checkpoint. What happened when the second officer got shot? He was doing surveillance.

Steve Williams: They were doing a surveillance operation looking for a robbery suspect.

John Montenegro: So he's in plain clothes in an unmarked car. The suspect gets inside of a house. The homeowner arms himself and says you probably shouldn't be here. The suspect agrees. Goes out the front door as the undercover officer is rolling up the street. Secondly involved shooting that deputy gets shot in the shoulder, nearly loses his arm that night. So I got two deputies down. Suspects last seen jumping over a fence, goes to the back door of a house trying to get in the slider. The family sees it. They flee. That's the last we know where the suspect was last seen.

So two deputies are down. Suspect fleeing from multiple houses. Is that a SWAT problem or is that a K9 problem? We ask this. We'll ask this when we teach, Steve and I will teach for the California Tactical Officer Association conference about K9 SWAT integration. We'll ask that. 99.9% of the time I'll hear it's a SWAT problem. It's a suspect running around a neighborhood that's armed. That's what K9 does. So for us, that's a K9 problem. So that's a full package of whatever number of dogs that they have. I think he had all eight to 12 out that night.

Steve Williams: Pulling everybody out.

John Montenegro: Our team was the two deputies down. We're notifying all the SWAT teams because we're going to be doing a high-risk. This suspect's already shot two deputies. Try to force his way. Already got forced his way in one house. Trying to force his way into a second house. So, the risk portion of it, that is a SWAT and K9 full-on integration.

Steve Williams: So, we get out there. I think they're planning on pinching.

John Montenegro: I think you guys are going to work both sides of the street trying to pinch to where were last seen. We get information that a suspect was last seen in his backyard. Family's out of the house, but they have a renter that rents like a conversion in the garage. They don't know if he's there or not. They don't have communication. He doesn't live in the main part of the house. Comes and goes as he pleases. If his car is there, then he's normally there. Okay, the car is there. So, now what do we have? We have a potential hostage rescue problem.

Jon Becker: You went from a DUI checkpoint to an HRT pretty quick.

John Montenegro: So, we're going out there to assist K9. Hey, what do you guys need? Okay. Hey, this might be a HRT problem. We're going to slow the roll on the K9 search. We're going to prepare for the hoset rescue problem. That takes, we all live all over the county. So, as we get assets out there, we establish enough SWAT bodies for the hostage rescue problem. We don't know if it's a hostage rescue problem yet. There's just a high potential for it. Okay, guys. Established that. We turned that over to two different teams. I think it was Tan and Gray. Okay, this the HRT problem you guys are handling. As the handling team, we're going with K9 to see if we can develop better information where the suspect might be at. Come back to what? Now it's a K9 problem. We got the HRT frozen. Now it's back to what do you guys need? And as we kind of progressed through that, Spencer was our dog handler. He's now a lieutenant at the SEB as well. We finally got down to that yard and I remember him telling us exactly. "I cannot tell you he's in the house, but I can tell you he didn't leave that yard" just because this what they do for a living by the stuff that we saw like what wasn't broken things that they had a wall with them. Remember that you don't see it too much anymore. The old green fiberglass you used to put around your wall to give you additional privacy. None of that's broken. So, he was very confident that suspect's inside that yard. He didn't break the yard. Can't guarantee he's inside the house. So eventually as that progresses, we get every end up pinching all the yards, get all that cleared. We shrunk our problem down now to a SWAT problem in that yard. Okay. So we have them kind of isolated here we believe. It ends up into a HRT problem. We get the hostage out and eventually we're able to put chemical agents. What does K9 become for us then? Part of our rest team. They become part of a tool for SWAT because now we're going to use chemical agents in the house. So he can be part of our rest team package in case a suspect tries to flee and we end up getting the suspect in custody.

That entire time, that 9-h hour operation, we just flip-flop back and forth like who's in charge or not who's in charge? Like what are we doing? We're helping K9 on this. Okay, what's next? K9 is now part of our arrest team procedure on this. It's so seamless in the way we think because there's that trust built over the years that I know what they can do. They know what we can do and we work together to solve a particular problem.

Jon Becker: So, see, let's continue with training. So, I'm a new K9 deputyuty. I'm going to go to a SWAT team for six-months.

Steve Williams: Yep. And it's a very intensive program just like it, for a new SEB deputy. You're assigned a mentor and they're going to be doing their best comparison. It's like being back on field training as a new deputy in patrol. A whole new skill set that you need to learn. So, you're assigned a mentor and they're going to do daily observation reports on you just like you would in patrol. You complete that six-month initial training phase. At that point, you've got the basic bare minimum tactical— you've proven yourself. You have the competency to start to learn our tactics and so far as our movement, our shooting and that kind of stuff goes. So, then we push you to the K9 side. And once you're on the K9 side officially now, we're going to pair you with a K9 partner. We buy our dogs from a vendor out here locally and then we attend a six-week basic K9 course that is outside. It's a post-approved course that is outside of LA County. While attending that course, I try to spend time as the trainer. I spend as much time out there as I can to, just monitoring their new dogs and training. But during that time, their sole focus is to learn the basics. It's called the basic handler course for a reason. You're learning the basics of becoming a handler. That's the only time where as a new guy, you actually get kind of a reprieve from being on call because we want you to focus on that.

At the end of that six-week period, now you come back to the unit and you're going to be assigned to same thing as a as you're going to be assigned to a trainer as a mentee, but now I'm focusing on your ability to handle a a dog and specifically handle the tactical area search mission that K9 that's our bread and butter. So, you're going to be on a three-month mentorship during that period. Same thing goes by whoever your mentor is that's assigned to you and during that time period, you will also complete our in-house certification with your dog. Once you complete that certification process, now you can start deploying on actual call outs.

Initially it's going to be patrol assist. They're all high-risk if we're rolling a K9 package out there. It meets our K9 deputyloyment criteria. So, they're all felons believed to be armed or confirmed to be armed. There's a specific reason why we're rolling the K9s out there, but we'll start on what we would consider lower risk of the K9 deputyloyments. Once that dog and handler can prove themselves, the dog's primary mission is a locating tool, that dog will locate bad guys where they're hiding and allow us to make better tactical decisions to take that person into custody. Once you're proving that you are able to locate bad guys that we have no idea where they are, that's when we'll start work slowly working you into actual SWAT calls where you're going to be working as an asset for the SED side, whether it's on a barricade or warrant service or something like that.

Jon Becker: So, I'm six-months I'm I'm SWAT school, then I'm six-months assigned to a SWAT team and going to every call out the team gets.

Steve Williams: Yes.

Jon Becker: Every call out that the team. I'm assigned to gets or every call out that.

Steve Williams: No, it's every single call out.

Jon Becker: So, yeah. So, for all six teams.

Steve Williams: Yeah, on the SWAT side, Johnny can attest to that.

John Montenegro: Yeah, we will average depends on the years. We had up to 300 call outs in a year, but 220 was kind of our average for a long period of time. So, that six-months, your name never comes off the board. You might just have it written in marker up there.

Jon Becker: So you're doing what you're doing theoretically and I know it's never this way but you're doing four a week potentially easily for six-months.

John Montenegro: Yeah. Easily your warrant services, your barricades, your unplanned events. You potentially can be drinking from a fire hose really in that first six-months from the SWAT side. You're not in a critical spot. We're going to put you in armor. We're going to put you in containment spots. You get a front row seat to see how everything plays out. You can't ask for a better answer like how did they breach the door? I'm watching it from the armored vehicle. How they getting the gas in from the containment spot. We're just doing it here on the containment spot. So, you really get that ton of knowledge of your basic core skill sets. Fortunately, we're a very busy team, so you kind of get that aspect.

I think our newest guy on the team, I checked him recently, I think he has like 300 and some call outs already.

Jon Becker: That's crazy.

John Montenegro: And that's in a matter of, three years on the teams. I think he's been on 100 callouts per year. You can't replicate that. And that gives us the ability to really have guys that can all think. You want a team that you can't tell who's in charge. If you have a team of guys that like I don't know who's the scout because they all look like they know what they're doing. That's a super team right there.

Jon Becker: So, in the six-months that as a new K9 deputyuty I'm assigned, I'm going on every call out, I'm getting maybe a hundred call outs or more in that six-months. Am I working? Am I observing? What's my role?

John Montenegro: You're going to be part of the package. We're going to give you someone as your partner. You're not going to be any containment spot by yourself. New guys from Fortune, their first job is to come get all the armor for us. We're very fortunate LA County, we have quite a bit of equipment. All that has to get out to us. County's 4,000 square miles. So, we do have armored vehicles placed throughout the county, but you're talking all our equipment from gas to robots to drones to TAC-CAT, which is like a caterpillar that is armored that we can pull walls apart, pull doors off. That's coming out with us. So, the first thing you're going to do is come out, get all the equipment, come to us, and we're going to assign you probably to a containment spot or driving the armor for us, depending on the mission. And that gives you a bird's eye view of everything that's going on. You're plugged into the radio with the rest of us as we brief information. You're seeing how it plays out. You're part of the warrant planning process. Even as the newest guy, so when we do warrant planning, you're in the car with us on our driveby, you're there when we're discussing our tactics on that. All good scouts are going to bounce information off everybody. Like, "What do you guys think? How do you see that differently?" That way, you're making better decisions. So, as a new guy, you have input. You have input into the decision-m process. May not have much experience, but you ask the question or why we do it this way. We're going to give you the reason. Hey, we did it before and it didn't work for us. So, you really have that ability to be part of the team. You're a new guy, but you're still a teammate from that standpoint. And we all have a vested interest in coming home safely and having a successful operation.

So, they get that experience. On the days we're not doing actual callouts, we're going to be training. So, movement, firearms training, everyday is physical training. So these guys come in. We have a pretty nice CrossFit gym and pretty nice regular gym. So you get your physical training in. We're going to work on ARV placement. We're going to work on our covert movement style or if we're doing HRT type stuff, shooting once a week if we can possibly get up there and do it. All the different skill sets that come along with being on the SWAT side because the difference between like Steve said, we're tactical deputies. They're tactical deputies. They work as a dog. That's their expertise. We have all theavy equipment. Because if you saw us dressed together, if we stood next to each other, you wouldn't know who was a K9 handler or who was a SWAT guy other than maybe their little zapper they have for the neck hauler or you saw the dog.

Jon Becker: Yeah. I'm going with the guy with the dog is the K9.

Steve Williams: Yeah.

John Montenegro: Yeah. If you are without the dog, the guy with the chain around his waist or something like that, that's probably the handler. But you couldn't tell the difference. We 're equipped the same. When we have guys going out to training or we're hosting training, K9 SWAT guys are training together. There's no difference in our physical standards. There's no difference in our shooting standards. There's no difference in any of that. Their expertise is working with a K9. Our expertise is explosive breaching, heavy equipment, chemical agents. We work in a team environment. K9's not going to move in the house with us the same way a regular teammate is because we do it all the time together. Sure, I can't read like their trails and they're tracking people. I can't see what they're seeing as well. They do this every night. So when they see a turnover pot, they're already forming ideas. So they're good at what they do, we're good at what we do, and then when you mesh us together, that becomes a really unstoppable force there.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Okay. So, I've spent six-months--

Steve Williams: Well, actually one thing during that six-month period, there's a couple must-pass things like you have to attend our 80-hour SWAT school and pass that. You have to attend our M4 school and pass that. You also have to go through MP5 school and pass that. And there's basically that six-months is broken down into six phases. So every phase was a four-week length. At the end of each four weeks, you have markers that you have to be tested on whether it's breaching of technology or whatever the case may be that you have to show competence in that. If you don't, you enter a remediation process and eventually if you're not meeting the standard, you could be removed.

Jon Becker: So, I mean, by the time I come out of that initial training phase, I've got more than a hundred call outs. I've been through SWAT school. I mean, with more than 100 callouts, I now have more experience than most part-time domestic team members will anywhere in the country. Now I'm a new K9 officer that's going to K9 training.

Steve Williams: So yeah, you go through that six-week basic course and you come out to that and now guess what? You're a new guy. You're still rolling to all the SEB calls because as K9 we roll to all of their calls to be able to be a K9 asset for them. You're also now rolling to all K9 requests. And like I said, we averaged just over 300 last year. We've had some years where we're up in the 400 range.

John Montenegro: So it's not just that I like a dog. You want to go find the suspect. Same way with us. If he gets called out right now after being up for 28 hours, he's going to smile just like the rest of us. Like, we're going to go get some work in, it's no different from that aspect of it. Our new guy, we tell him all the time, "it'll be a year, year and a half before you ever see the inside of a house other than drawing a diagram for us because we're going to make sure that you can move and think because there's no hall bossing". They're making their own decisions as we're flowing through this house. Same thing probably a year, year and a half before our dog becomes a SWAT team qualified. Like you can use him for SWAT work.

Steve Williams: Our newest dog handler that we have right now is paired with a K9. He has been on the unit just over 18 months and he is just now starting to work. He's only had like two call outs and he's heavily like I'm in his back pocket as he's working with the team, there to answer questions and make sure everything's going smoothly.

Jon Becker: And he's probably got 200 call outs at this point.

Steve Williams: Oh, at least.

John Montenegro: Yeah. And add his K9.

Steve Williams: And his K9 request on top of that. Yeah, it's because he rolled to all of them last year. So we had him get 300 K9 searches and call outs also.

Jon Becker: So is that first so I get my dog I'm now assigned to K9. I'm going to everything that K9's doing. I'm going to everything that SEDs do but for how long?

Steve Williams: So unfortunately, sometimes it could be years. Sometimes if you're really lucky, it might only be a few months. Unfortunately, part of that is the bad guys get a vote. So it goes back to what I said where I need to see actually in the field, not in a training environment, that you and your dog are locating bad guys. And then once which all the time we have we're partway through that process and then unfortunately this dog's not meeting our standard which means you're now starting over back at the six-week mark.

Jon Becker: So I can bounce out in my first six-months with SWAT. I can bounce out of K9 school. The dog can bounce out.

Steve Williams: Right.

Jon Becker: Anywhere in that first year. And so I'm 18 months to two years or more into my career in K9 services with three or 400 operations under my belt before I am a standalone K9 services deputy.

Steve Williams: Eventually, yeah, it works out for everybody. We haven't had somebody that where, they're still dog after dog after dog. I mean, usually if they don't work out with one, usually it works out with the next one. Once they've kind of completed that mentorship process where like I said, our newest handler is going through that process right now. And he's right there. He's real close. At that point, he's considered a full signed off K9 Services Detail deputy. And that's where the trust comes in. So again, I don't know how they train the dogs or whatever they do on that side. When they tell me the guy's SWAT team is ready, it has been. So when the dogs come to us like, "Hey, he can be part of your arrest team. He can work for you guys on the SWAT side," that dog has been ready. No dog's perfect. There are times like, "Oh, we could do something a little different on that one." But they take a lot of pride in what they do. We take a lot of pride in what we do. So that's where the trust comes in. And having them on our team for a period of time.

John Montenegro: I think Phil Hansen years ago told me this, "If you get to a critical incident and you have to introduce yourselves, you guys are way behind the power curve already". So, it's John to Steve and he has input on stuff as I'm making decisions. He uses a good illustration like I place an armored vehicle for my turret guy to see a certain thing. But if I'm asking his dog to be part of the rest team, his dog's two feet tall and if I have it angled a certain way, his dog can't see anything. So, if he needs to be able to launch his dog, he has to be able to see. So that's where we met. He has to be comfortable enough coming to the senior guys like, "Hey, can we angle his armor a little bit different so my dog can see if you always want or I can work off the back end." Whatever you guys want me to do. But if you want me to get that dog to that front door, he has to be able to see it from the standpoint. They don't have remote controls. I like that. They don't come with remote controls.

Steve Williams: As much as we'd like our dogs to have remote controls, they don't.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Yeah. So from the SWAT side, what's the value of a dog?

Steve Williams: They have not invented anything that can replicate that dog's nose. Simple as that. So, if we're looking for a dog from arresting procedures, that dog's a less-lethal tool for us, able to engage a suspect for us to get up there and put hands on them, put them in handcuffs and get them into custody. From a search standpoint, a robot, a drone cannot put its nose on the door and tell me there's someone hanging behind it. So, the safety aspect of that, it gives me options. So, if we're we've we've done everything we can. We've done PA announcements, nothing. We've tried chemical agents, no response from the suspect. We're confident he's in there. We've put a drone in there. Can't find him. We've put a dog spot, one of those, Boston Dynamic dog. Creepy as all heck. They look like something from War of the Worlds. They're really creepy looking dogs. It can't put its nose on anything. It can search through a house for us. Soon as we learn to search behind K9 and that dog gets his nose on a door and alerts, I don't have to open that door any longer. Now I have options. Now I can do all the other things that can drive that suspect out to us. How do we take that suspect into custody safely? And if he does choose to run, the dog can help apprehend that suspect from that standpoint.

I would get rid of pole cams, drones, robots before I ever got rid of a K9. It's just something you can't replicate that mother nature turned into the perfect search machine for us.

Jon Becker: So, this kind of begs the question of "locus of control". Who is in charge? Who has the handle from an LA County Sheriff's Department terminology standpoint? Who has the handle? How do you determine and how does that transition?

Steve Williams: I mean, we do it all the time. So, everybody kind of knows their roles. I mean, if you wanted to say to try and like to put it on paper, the best way to describe it was, do we know where the suspect's at? If we know where the suspect's at, he's in that car. He's in that house. He's in that shed. That's a SWAT problem. They work it from the outside. They figure out how to make that suspect come out to us. I'm going to be a tool for them. The suspect was last seen jumping over that wall. Airship's there. There's nobody on the other side of that wall. Okay, that means we have no idea where he's at. He's somewhere in this containment. That could be five, six, seven blocks big, who knows? Hundreds and hundreds of houses. He could be anywhere. That's a can problem. When the suspect needs to be located, it's ours. When we know where the suspect's at, he's inside that. Now, it's going to transition over to the SWAT side.

Jon Becker: So, if I look at a K9 deputyuty as three things, right? I look at you as the ability to find, the ability to assist in apprehension, and as a tactical asset because you're all you're all tactical deputies.

Steve Williams: Exactly.

Jon Becker: You could be filling any of those three roles. But if you're filling the search role, you're in charge.

Steve Williams: Correct.

Jon Becker: And if you're filling either of the other two roles, the scouts in charge.

Steve Williams: Correct.

John Montenegro: I'd say the only thing I add to that is if you're on the exterior of a structure, that's an area search. Now, if we're using them to search inside of a structure from a barricade standpoint, we're going to be in charge. K9 up, send your dog in this room for us. Dog does a hot lap. I don't watch what the dog does. I have no idea what I'm looking for. I'll have Steve tell me like, "Hey, he had a he's alerting high on thattic space." Okay, it's information I need to know. So, you can get wobblers.

My last operation as a scout before I stepped down, we had a guy that carjacked someone in Compton, did an armed robbery in Lakewood, and ended up in Century Station. All these stations border each other. Century Station gets in pursuit with them. He gets in a deputy involved shooting with them during this pursuit. Crashes right there at Alamita and Fernwood, which luckily for us is right across the street from Century Station, literally across the street. And that's the biggest sheriff station we have. So the amount of resources they poured out of that building in a short period of time was to our benefit. The last scene ran down the street. Another shooting occurs. He runs inside of an auto body place, a place where they rebuild cars, strip cars, all this kind of stuff. Last seen running inside the building. The airship said they're above head about a minute out because they were rolling to the pursuit. Is that a K9 problem or is that a SWAT problem? That was a wobbler. The K9 handler is out there. Give me a call. We had the duty team. It's like on a Friday, in a late afternoon, like six o'clock at night. So, the rulers of the day. I was already home having dinner. So, I get the call and we're bouncing ideas. I'm like, is this an area search or you think it's you think he's pretty confident he's inside there? Last information we have, he's inside the building. No one saw him break outside this thing. So, we kind of handle it as a barricade, but we have in our head potential area search. We still have a massive containment for it.

The other thing we run into, so we get out there. I'm pretty confident that he's in this, one by one block because of the amount of resources already in pursuit airships there in a quick period of time and the amount of resources that poured out of the sentry station in order to kind of contain this area. We're balancing this idea. We have an airship for about three hours because we have a massive storm coming in. This during the time we're getting those atmospheric rivers. We were getting massive storms. So I have them for 3 hours above head. So we get out there and we kind of trying to speed this up. So I talked to the handler. We get everybody out. No video inside. So we started doing a K9 search. So we're going to do clearing everything up to that building. We put a robot in there. Couldn't find them. We sit a drone in there. Nothing to see. There's closed doors and there's areas that a drone and a robot can't get to. So we used a little Nero, wasn't it? Yeah. So, we used near one of our older dogs and the way this auto body place is, you probably had 50 vehicles out front inside this parking area. In the back, it's triple stacked. No less than 250, 300 cars. So, it's stacked like shelves of cars.

Jon Becker: Smells like a junkyard.

John Montenegro: 100%. And the suspect can be anywhere in any of these places here. No one saw him exit the building. So, we started working with the dog. We send them his hot lap looking for any interest, nothing. Then we hand ourselves clear behind him. We always will verify a dog's work. Just because the dog went there doesn't mean he didn't miss something. Like again, they're picking up odor anything else like that. So we sent the dog, nothing in that front parking lot. There's like a paint shop attached to it. You send the dog to the paint shop. Nothing clear behind that. End up in the main building, nothing. Dog's just walking around like nothing really of interest to him. Find the four side door and we can see where the suspect ran across a bunch of old radiators up over a fence into the triple stacked three yard area as that time we lose half the team. We got another barricade going on down in Compton. So I lose half the guys. So now we're going to have our containment a little looser but tight and I'm losing airship coverage probably in about an hour. So I talk we have a dog called Chucky. What's his additional title?

Steve Williams: He's a single-purpose tracking dog. So, another dog I didn't mention earlier. Our sergeants assigned to the K9 Services Detail. They won't run an apprehension dog. They will run a single-purpose tracking dog.

Jon Becker: Okay.

John Montenegro: So, when we search we get over that fence. We get everything out. We found the first gun. So, we know he ditched one firearm. So, this where trust and ideas come in. I know I'm losing airship coverage. I asked the sergeant like, "Hey, can I get Chucky to take a S off that gun?" I don't know how they work. All I wanted to know is if Chucky takes me to that back fence and that the suspect broke this part of the containment, I can isolate like I can hold these 300 cars and maybe concentrate someplace else while I still have airship coverage. Because if I lose airship coverage and he starts running in the rain, we're going to have a very hard time trying to apprehend him. Again, dog guys like Chucky's not an apprehension dog. So if he finds a suspect, he's just going to bark at him, which is potentially putting the dog at risk for not necessarily.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

John Montenegro: So like we kind of abandoned that idea. We kind of continue to push and start searching from big buildings. Myself and my teammate, went to clean a bathroom and they sent Nero and it was the great team guys who were assisting us. So Dan and Edson pick it up. Do goes in a hot lap and we've already searched hundreds of cars. He stops and stands on one car in the trunk, starts moving his head around and they recall him and he goes, "Hey, send him again." Does his hot lap, ignores all these other cars, gets back that one, stands on the trunk. We didn't bark. He was trying to find his way in. I think you guys are trying to explain to me.

Steve Williams: Yeah, I wasn't there watching it, but from talking to the handler, the dog was doing what we typically call back-dooring. So, if he left him there before recalling, he would have eventually given an alert. But that's part of our job as a handler is to be able to recognize that change in behavior. He recognized that dog's changed behavior is he's now trying to find a way into this car where he's now running past a couple hundred cars at this point. There's only one car he's trying to find a way into.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

John Montenegro: So that gives the idea that we are able to remotely insert chemical agents, drive a suspect out to us and end up taking him into custody in short order without having to search the other 300 cars. You can't do that with a throwbot. You can't do that with a drone. You can't do that with all these things. The airship couldn't even pick up a hot spot in there because we're triple stacked in there and there's cats running around. So all these different things that dog's nose allowed us to find that suspect exactly where he was at. Mitigated having to go through searching that entire yard. Had the suspect in custody in a short period of time.

Jon Becker: So within a structure, so if you're clearing behind the team that the team's in charge, right? And you're moving at the back of their stack or how does that work?

Steve Williams: So, I mean, without getting too much into the tactics, we're a tool for them. They're dictating the search inside that house. Whenever they come to an area, and typically any area the dog hasn't been in yet, they will call us up. At that point, I come up, I take my position. A big part of being a K9 handler is being in a position to watch your dog work. We're not real big fans of being at the back of the stack and yeah, can my dog run past all the guys and go in the room and then come back out? Yeah. But those micro alerts or those micro changes in behavior where the dog's getting a slight whiff coming through a crack in the ceiling that it's not enough odor for him to alert, but now he's giving me high interest. And then when we go to the next room, we see an attic opening and we already know.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Steve Williams: So I can't see that from the back of the stack. So I get right up in front. I have these guys as my protection and I send my dog into the area that he dictates, hey, I want you to have your dog check the kitchen and the living room. Okay. And it's very important and this where our training comes in and why it takes time to get to the point where you're deploying with an actual SWAT team is you have to have almost perfect control of that dog. When I say perfect, I mean, not only will 100% of the time the dog's coming back if people call him back, but I can get him to go left. I can get him to go right. I can get him to put his nose on something from a distance because that's what it takes when John tells me, "Hey, I want you to have him check the kitchen." That means the dog goes into the kitchen. Doesn't mean he goes into the kitchen, living room, and then runs down the hallway. So I have the dog check what he wants. I get back, I get out of his way, and now we have the conversation. And this the communication that we have to have seamlessly, whether we're doing an area search or inside is, okay, the dog, he checked this, he checked that. I'm good with you guys clearing that. My dog really didn't put a good sniff on that door. So before you guys pop that, call me up. I'll make sure I get his nose on it.

Then now obviously the tactics from that point on, they're going to search. They use their clearing methods to safely clear that room. We always say, "Dogs check, people clear". Dogs check it, people clear it. So the people clear it. We physically occupy the space. Now it's clear. Once they get to the next space that they want to have the dog check, I come back up.

John Montenegro: Yeah, we're always going to check. We want to see where the wall meets, where it meets the ceiling, where it meets the floor. So we're checking everything. We're pulling thing out of the closet if we need to. His dog goes by, kid goes by and doesn't alert, we're still going to hand check that as though someone's inside there.

Steve Williams: Yeah. So, I mean, it's going to end up with people ultimately, but you're using the dog as the dog has authority to positively alert.

John Montenegro: Correct.

Jon Becker: The fact that the dog doesn't see something or doesn't alert is not a definitive negative. But the dog alerting is pretty close to a definitive positive. And they're good about it.

John Montenegro: They think their dog's just not operating today. They'll go pull another, they'll take their dog out and bring another K9 in and let's start this again. You get another look at it. Or I've seen him put a couple dogs' noses on a door something like I'm pretty confident he's in here somewhere. Yeah.

Steve Williams: Yeah. One dog's giving us a like, okay, he's got interest.

John Montenegro: Yeah.

Steve Williams: That's the thing that I try not to do as a K9 handler, but sometimes that's the best I can do. Hey, he's giving me a change in behavior at that door, but it's not an alert. So, but at least John has that information when he's making his tactical decision on how he's going to open that door.

Jon Becker: John, if you were building a SWAT K9 program, so a team that's listening to this and is thinking about building a SWAT K9 program from the SWAT side of it, what would you make sure you did?

John Montenegro: One is their handlers are the same as the SWAT guys in terms of decision-making capability, experience. We want tactical deputies. They just want to have a dog instead of like all theavy equipment. It's a lifestyle change. I wouldn't want to have my life having this dog with me all the time. I like working in a team environment. So, I want the same individual and we had to hold them to the same standards from that standpoint. I want that dog to do exactly what they tell me to do or I need to have them confident enough in our relationship to like "My dog can't do what you're asking it to do. It can't go in the room, turn the TV on for you, and come back and tell you he's right there in the corner. He's going to do what a dog does. Sometimes dogs are good. Sometimes dogs are bad." They have the ability to kind of cycle those dogs out if they need to. I want a handler that's competent. I want a dog that is experienced that they know it will find. If it needs to apprehend, it will apprehend. And then for us to have that relationship where we can just work together on a firstname basis. Separate but equal is never going to work. If you're just trying to pull a patrol dog and you give the patrol dog handler a helmet, that's not SWAT trained. You really have to think like a tactical officer, tactical deputy. You have to operate like a tactical deputy. You have to be equipped the same way. You should be going to the same training they are. Like do you understand how they move? Do you understand what their HRT principles are? Do you understand what you're going to do with the dog if this guy starts running over fences and house to house? That kind of stuff. I think the more you integrate, the more you guys pull in the same direction and you share authority, the better off you're going to be.

Jon Becker: Steve, what about you? You've done a lot of training with a lot of K9 units and have a lot of experience in this area. If you were building a program, not at an agency the size of the LA County Sheriff's Department, but at a small agency, I want to start building a SWAT dog and integrating. Where do I start?

Steve Williams: The selection process. There are K9 handlers out there that are dog guys. They like their dog. They wanted their take-home car but they're not about to get called out at 2 o'clock in the morning to go to this barricade that I'm going to sit at for 12 hours. So, where you can start is starting with having your K9 units take the same PT test that your SWAT department or your SWAT units take. If you have that same PT standard and then you have the same shooting standard, you're going to be attracting the same type of person that the SWAT team is attracting. And you've already met half the battle there. I can teach you if you have the desire to run a dog, but I can't teach the desire to be in good shape or to spend extra time at the range and meet those standards. The other big part of your selection process is not going for the person because he has some kind of dog experience, but going back to I need a good policeman. I need somebody that can look at a problem, problem solve, tactically figure out how to solve that problem, whatever that problem is. And as a K9 deputyuty, I roll out on problems all the time, and I look at the problem and go, the problem, the way to solve this to call the SWAT guys out, and there's a lot of times that we get these wobbler, oh, is it a barricade? It's kind of lightweight. Or especially like in vehicles. Oh, what's he? Well, we don't know if he's armed, but he's not the end of the pursuit and he's not coming out of the car. I can respond out there as a K9 unit with my K9 package and I can assess that and go, "Yeah, this something I can handle with some patrol guys or I can look at it and go, "No." And I call my lieutenant, "Hey, sir, we need you to send out the duty team. This a barricade."

Jon Becker: How does selection of actual dogs change in your mind between what's the differentiator between a good patrol dog and a good SWAT dog?

Steve Williams: There are there I think a SWAT dog and a good SWAT dog could be a good patrol dog. Not all patrol dogs can be a good SWAT dog. Some of that's temperament and some of the things, but a lot of it is the focus of your training. And unfortunately, like everything, law enforcement, we don't get to train as much as we should. And you only have so much time dedicated. If you're a patrolman working with a dog, you're going to focus on those aspects that you're performing.

Having a dog that from the beginning you're focusing on, that integration, building that pack mentality with that dog. So the dog clearly sees the picture of okay when you put three or four guys that are 6 foot 230 lbs and full tactical gear in a small little hallway in East LA and they're working opposing doors. We're going to get to know each other really well and it's a really tight confined space. Can the dog handle that type of a situation moving in and out of the stack and stuff like that? So, finding a dog that has a good temperament, clear-headed… some of the dogs you'll see like they have like a boilover point where they just start going ballistic or they'll bark or they'll, they'll we call it like they redline. I can't have that dog working in a SWAT environment. I need a dog. Do I expect him to lay it in a perfect down and not move while these guys are shooting gas over their head? No. But the dog needs to be managed. He definitely isn't ever looking back at those team members like, "Hey, why are you shooting that loud thing over my head?" I want them to be excited to work in that environment, then they're neutral to flashbangs and 40s being shot, potentially gunfire, whatever that situation provides. They have to be able to work in that environment.

All our dogs go through a six-week period that the certification process I talked about inhouse. We have a check off sheet to make sure we don't miss any of those things. And our dogs have to be able to show that they've worked in an actual chemical agent environment. They've been put in attics, they've been put on tight crawl spaces, they've done integration with a team. And until we are confident that the dog's able to do all those tasks, then they're not going to deploy with us.

John Montenegro: And the SWAT guys have to buy into it as well. K9 runs a SWAT integration course, and in years past, they would just send K9 handlers. How can you integrate if your SWAT team guys aren't there participating as well, you have to be comfortable with what the dog's going to do. You have to be comfortable working around the dog. You have to see what a dog provides you to make those decisions. I like dogs, so I work in and around me all the time. I've had some teammates that get a little bit more nervous around the dog as he comes by and the dog starts nipping on his gas mask bag for a little bit.

Jon Becker: Just a taste test.

John Montenegro: He's just saying hello. He's just sniffing. But, they would go in there and the dog's not going to get to engage. You got to be able to bring that dog back. The suspect surrenders, bring them back through us when the dog's located and ready and not engaging us. He brings it back through. You have to build that confidence. If not, you guys aren't going to be integrated. You're just trying to throw a dog into a SWAT problem and hoping for the best. It really should be from a cultural standpoint. It really should be from the way you think and interact with each other. They are SWAT team members as well. So, we're all special enforcement bureau. So, they're K9, we're SEB side, but we're all special enforcement bureau. All pulling in the same direction. They have their lane, we have our lane. Sometimes blurs. There's things that they've been in my stack for hostage rescue where they became an operator and assaulter just like the rest of us. I've had K9 guys go pursuit. Guy runs in a house with a gun, takes the family hostage as a SWAT. That's a SWAT problem now, but they're the first guys on scene. And as we're arriving, I remember getting out of my car in Compton, there were some separations and they declared a crisis and K9 made a crisis entry because they're still policemen and they're still tactical deputies. And that was what the tactics were. We had separation. Go get the hostages.

So, you have to buy in from both sides. And if you try to do this whole separate but equal or you're a patrol dog or the SWAT side, going to be much harder operationally for that to work.

Steve Williams: The other big one that it takes is command staff buyin. Understanding that there is a need for that K9 guy. Yeah, you're losing him one day a week already for K9 training, but he also needs to be at SWAT training. He needs you to give him up for two weeks to go through SWAT school.

When you're buying equipment, it's, "Oh, there's 20 SWAT guys on our team, so we need 20 new team Wendy helmets." No, we need 22 because we have two dogs in our department also. You have to just look at it and the command staff level has to understand that because if you don't, then what happens is you get thrown in an operation and now when you are thrown together, you've never trained together. The K9 handler doesn't know what the SWAT guys are trying to accomplish. The SWAT guys don't know what the dog's capable of. And you can make mistakes. You can have problems that could have easily been avoided with just a little bit of training on the front side.

Jon Becker: Yeah. It's what's always struck me as interesting about SEB is you guys have a very heavy front training package, right? Like it is a long time until you are trusted by your teammates to take authority but once you reach that point the trust among the teams whether it's bomb or ad like any of those units the trust among the operators just seems to be kind of native and seamless. There's not this like if Steve tells you something, you're going to take that as fact. And that is an area that I see in a lot of other teams. They struggle because they don't spend the time together that you guys are spending together. They don't have the high standards that you're forcing everybody to meet. And so it's this kind of always looking over their shoulder like, "Well, can we trust him?" And I think that's something that you guys have unlocked that a lot of teams haven't. And there's there's two reasons for that.

Steve Williams: Then again going back to the selection process, our selection process to become a K9 deputyuty is the same as the SWAT. As a matter of fact, the written portion of the test is the same test. Even if you're testing for both details, you only take one test, your score counts for both lists. So, but a good example of that trust that comes up is we had an operation down in Sentry very close to Alamita down where the other incident Johnny was talking about. A couple sentry guys jumped in front of their car. "Hey, I just got robbed. I just got robbed." Okay. What? That black truck that just turned down that street. So, they do what good policemen do. They take off after that truck while they're getting on the radio saying, "Hey, we just got flagged down. Give me a unit over here to contact the victim. They round that corner and what the bad guy didn't realize is that when he turned down that street, it was a cul-de-sac. Jon Becker: Oh boy.

Steve Williams: So now he turns around, he's coming back at him and now the cars are nose-to-nose and a gunfight happens. One of the deputies was actually hit in thead. Fortunately, it was basically a graze wound. It knocked him down, but his partner was able to get him back behind the car. They were able to retreat back, return fire. While they're taking cover, they don't see anybody get out of the car. The gunfight kind of lols and they start asking for units.

Fortunately, the K9 unit, were one city away in Lakewood doing some training. So, were on scene really quick. I wanted to say if I'd have to go back and look at the timeline, but it was like within five, six minutes, we had some K9 assets on scene. But with that type of incident, it was massive. It was like a 8 n block containment.

John Montenegro: And it kept expanding.

Steve Williams: And it kept getting bigger and bigger. But the trust was there because the first thing we do I call the desk. "Hey, push the button. I need all the teams." "Oh, but by the way we're still working some stuff out here on the scene". So I don't want you to come to the scene. I want you to go to that staging area. So imagine telling a bunch of alpha SWAT guys that like one of our partners just got shot and you want me to do what? You want me to go stage over there? Well, it takes trust and these guys to know that hey, we'll get you in the game. We're going to use you, but we got to work some stuff out first. And doing what we do without going into any yards or anything like that, were able to man the suspect. And looking at some video.

The first K9 handlers that were on scene, they thought, "Oh, the suspect might be down in the car." So, they form a quick four-man team, push up, clear the car. There's three handguns at Sidlock. And they check a video and you see the suspect running from that truck firing over his shoulder with his fourth handgun that he had. But they're able to track. Okay, he went down to the end of the cul-de-sac. He went this direction. So that's now the containment's expanding. They track a little bit further. They go down and they find a pistol. They go a little bit further. We found a sweatshirt. Go a little bit further. We found a holster. Now this containment is massive because now we have the direction, okay, we think he's pushing east. They are just arrows. Start putting units here, here, and here, and here. Eventually, we got to the point we're like, okay, this our containment. If he's in here, he's in here. If he's out of here, he's had enough time that expanding the containment at this point isn't going to do it for us.

John Montenegro: I think you're using SWAT guys as a I think the handling team went out with them because…

Steve Williams: Well, that's ultimately what we did. So, once we had that basic of, okay, we have a direction of travel. We're pretty confident we're on the right track. Now, we go back to the SWAT side and we have, okay, this what our plan is. We're going to this containment is so massive, we're going to start with our tracking dog. We're going to see if we can get a tracking dog to track and put us into a yard that we can start. If we can get this tracking dog to take us past five or six yards, even that's five or six yards, we may not have to search. So, we're going to start with a tracking dog, but they need security. So, we put some SWAT guys with them and we put one apprehension dog with them. So, as they're moving, we're going to have a contingent of another SWAT guy or I'm sorry, another K9 handler and some SWAT guys. And as that tracking dog moves, every time it passes a house that has video cameras, we're going to have that team break off, clear that property, push up, contact the homeowners, start looking for video surveillance to confirm that this tracking dog's on the property. And we had about five or six of those teams because obviously it takes time to stop and review videos. So they're just going to keep leapfrogging down the block as the tracking dog goes. In addition to that, this guy could still pop up and start shooting at any time. So we have the duty team decide they wanted to be the QRF team so they can now respond if anything the tracking dog comes across that has his initial security but now they can respond to that. If one of the teams breaks off to start checking video surveillance because video they can break off to check that and they also were supported by ESD.

Ultimately, what happens is, the tracking dog goes down, trails a little over a block, shows some interest in a yard, there was a dog in the yard. At the time, the tracking dog was pretty new. The handler said, I thought it was just nose-to-nose dog stuff. He kind of tells him, "Hey, get back on track." The dog goes down about three or four more houses and loses it. So he's like, "Ah, I don't know what happened." Well, that house that he had some interest in happened to have cameras on it. So, we push on there, contact the homeowner. Hey, can we say take a look at the cameras? Yeah, sure. Come on in. We start reviewing cameras. And sure enough, the homeowner that lived there, her daughter was walking home from school. Sheard all the gunshots. So, what does she do? She goes out, she opens her front gate, pulls her car out, drives down the street, picks up her kid. While she's doing that, the suspect runs onto her property and is last seen disappearing on that property. She comes home after picking up her daughter, closes the gate.

So now it looked like that property had been disturbed, but there was that small window of time and were able to determine the suspect was on that property. So we quickly, hey, shelter those people in place. We haven't cleared the entire property. QRF over here, apprehension dog over here. We clear the rest of that property and confirm that the suspect is not there. And we're now starting to look for signs. Okay, which direction did the guy go from this property? We're continuing to review that video surveillance and we quickly realized that the suspect actually got in a vehicle that was on that property and fled the containment.

So in this massive 12-13 whatever block hundreds of houses would have taken us 3 days to clear all these yards by using our good tactics and having those search teams supported by SWAT guys and having that trust between the two units to be able to spot check things and use those tactics. We were able to determine relatively quickly the suspect was out of the containment. Fortunately, it was a vehicle that had OnStar. We were able to contact OnStar and locate the vehicle and were still able to get that suspect in custody that night.

Jon Becker: Yeah. It's so interesting how fluid it is though.

Steve Williams: Yeah.

Jon Becker: I think that's what makes this such a challenging thing is this kind of fluidity between the team and patrol and the K9 unit and floating that responsibility.

John Montenegro: You give that same problem to most teams in the state or across the county. The SWAT team's searching yard by yard.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

John Montenegro: By yard. They just don't have that working relationship. We trust this what they do every day all day is this kind of stuff. So like searching for cameras and stuff like that. Trusting the tracking dog, I would hate to bypass yards. It goes against everything I think from a tactical side from awake yards that I haven't cleared that I know it's not behind me cleared. These guys are going by the sign. So there's that trust between us. We're there to support them on that aspect. He said like when he finds something he thinks on the property SWAT team's gonna be on top of that and potentially a hostage rescue problem potentially anything from that standpoint. That is what's unique but it is worth the effort if you guys can build that relationship and trust one another and build that skill set. It's worth the effort by a lot.

Steve Williams: It can get complicated. We had an incident later or earlier this summer. It took place down in Compton. Patrols doing what they're supposed to do. They're out there patrolling and as they're driving down the street, they witness a shooting which we later determine to be a homicide. It happened in a parking lot. Suspects get in a car and they go in pursuit. They're in pursuit of those suspects. They're at the time they're just calling them shooting suspects. During the course of the pursuit, one of the passengers leaves out the passenger window, starts shooting an AK-47, striking one of the patrol vehicles. Pursuit continues on a little bit longer. I happened to be working that night.

So as soon as I heard, "Hey, their deputies are taking rounds. I'm paging up the rest of my K9 unit." I said, "Hey guys, start monitoring Compton and start heading that way." I then called the desk. Hey, who's the duty team? Wake them up. This might tell them to start monitoring Compton. Not ready for them to start rolling yet, but want to start getting that ball rolling because this could be headed the direction that we're going to need everybody. Pursuit goes a short distance further. They end up bailing out of the car, all running into a neighborhood. So, three suspects, one rifle was recovered from the car. One suspect is seen fleeing from the car with a rifle and there was sign that there was also a handgun in the car as well. So, we potentially have at least two weapons outstanding, and we've already recovered one rifle. I don't remember exactly at what point during the search, but the suspect, unfortunately, from the previous shooting with a deputy's witness ended up passing away. So, now we're looking for homicide suspects that also shot at deputies. And that goes back to the question that we posed earlier. So, whose handle is that? Is this a SWAT problem or is this a K9 problem?

Well, in the confusion of the radio, one of the things that was put out on the radio was, I saw him run into a house. One of the patrol guys say, I just saw him run into this house. So, as I'm on my way there, I have to take my K9 hat off, put my tactical deputy hat on. What's my priority? My priority is the potential hostage situation of one of those suspects that just broke into a house and is now holding innocent people. The patrol can maintain the autocontainment. We'll find the other guys eventually, but my first priority is setting up a crisis team for that property. Fortunately, I ended up being the first SEB person to arrive on scene. I figured out which patrol deputy said that on the radio and he goes, "No, no, I didn't see him go in the house. I saw him jump into the backyard." So, were able to rule that out pretty quick.

By now I've got the duty team is in route to me, supported by additional SWAT guys. After as soon as the duty team landed and we saw that, yeah, this going to be a massive area search, we have three suspects outstanding, went ahead and paged everybody at that point. Now, it's a full bureau activation. All the SWAT teams, all the K9s, they're all coming out to this location.

One of the other pieces of information that we got was one of the suspects was last seen in a particular backyard of a property. So, we started setting up an arrest team there. The airship saw one of the other suspects continue to travel south. Now we're setting an arrest team over there. The third guy, we're not exactly sure. At one point they were all in the backyard of this one house together and the airship believes that I think one of them ditched a weapon there. He was just doing something behind the shed. Okay. Well, and it just so happens that house has a bunch of gang member type people hanging out in the driveway really interested in everything that we're doing as well. So setting up an arrest team on that.

We develop information through one of the first properties that patrol see a homeowner comes out and says, "Hey, they were just in my backyard." Oh, I see you have cameras in your house. How do those cameras work? Yes. Can we review the footage? As soon as I hear that, I get an SEB guy over there. Start reviewing that video camera. It's one of our scouts, super experienced Gold Team scout, Larry Swanson. He's able to review that video and he sees the suspect. The video cuts off, but he's running dead sprint towards a garage that is always left open. And now the garage door is closed. So I'm back to our original debate. You got to be a policeman. I'm calling that a clue.

Jon Becker: That's a clue.

Steve Williams: That's a clue. So what is that now? We are pretty sure the suspect's in there. Not 100% sure, but we're pretty sure he's inside a structure. Is that a SWAT problem or is that a K9 problem? Well, that's going to be handled by the SEB side, K9 and support. But we still have this other operation going. We still have two other guys out here running around inside this containment and the one that Arrow last saw was at the complete opposite side of this containment.

So now I have to meet with the duty team, the Red Team team leader or sorry the Red Team scout deputy or Juan Rodriguez and we have that conversation. "Okay, this going to be your problem over there. Who do you want to have set on that? I'm going to pass. We're going to treat that like a barricade. So you have that but we still have this area search to do." Okay. Well, the first step, one of the first steps we do on a barricade once we have our basic arrest teams established is to start to contain that location.

One of the things that we do on a very routine basis when we're placing bodies in a containment yard is we clear it with the dog first because we have had numerous operations where patrol calls us out. Oh, were watching the whole time. Right before you got here, the suspect came to the door and absolutely no way he got out. Then 12 hours later we clear an empty house.

Well, we've learned that sometimes that suspect is in the yard next door. So, we clear those properties and it happens to us all the time. We're clearing that property of the two side or the three side, whatever the case may be, and all of a sudden the dog comes across the suspect in the shed. So, if I'm going to place some SWAT containment bodies in that yard, I want to make sure that they know that yard's been sanitized by a dog and that it's clear and they can focus their attention on the house and they're not worried about what's happening to their back.

So, we have a little bit of a debate. Well, do we continue with this area search over here? Do we go ahead and start locking this down? More assets are starting to land. We make the decision, "Hey, have pretty good intel. We know for sure where that one guy is. The other two we believe are in the containment, but it's also possible that they broke. Let's get that guy locked down first."

So, we establish a search team with one of our dogs in support and we start sanitizing the surrounding yards around that property where we believe the suspect's in the garage. While searching that three side yard, all of a sudden, the dog goes into a detached garage and locates a suspect. And then we see what that suspect's wearing. See his description. Review the video. Those are two different people. So bingo, we just got one in custody by sticking to those core principles of using the dog to locate bad guys.

We get that containment placed up. Now we have that barricade locked down. Well, we still have at least one suspect outstanding inside this containment. Which one is now the priority? That barricaded suspect where we know where we're pretty confident we know where he's at or the suspect that's still running around inside the neighborhood. At that point, we stop any kind of barricade operations. We have it contained. We hold on to that. And now we are going to continue with our area search. We break out multiple dogs. We're going to work in a back-to-back search pattern. We figure out what yard we decide we want to start searching on based on the info that we got from neighbors, residents, cameras, patrol, thelicopter, everything. We start our search. We quickly locate that second suspect as he's hiding underneath a patio cover. The dog locates and apprehends him.

So now we have two in custody. Well, we don't remember that video doesn't show 100% the suspect going in there. The door is closed now, but we don't know for sure that the suspect's in there. But we're going based on the totality of the circumstances, we're going to treat that as a barricade. We have to maintain our outer containment, but we're going to start focusing on that. That's where our highest probability is. At that point, we start going through our barricade progressions on that. The suspect tries to flee from that location and the arrest team dog that is with him is able to apprehend that third suspect.

So that trust of a complex situation of being able to divide. I could trust, yeah, this an area search. Overall it's a K9 problem, but we have a potential barricade in the middle of it. Well, knowing my sense as a tactical deputy and being able to look at the big picture and figure out what are the priorities, working hand in hand with the scout that was out there and being able to pass part of the operation off to him. There wasn't a big conversation of, "Oh, well, what do you think about this?" It was just seamless because we do it all the time.

Jon Becker: Yeah. I mean, I think in the end, the root of the program here is really high standards, right? Getting the guys seasoned and experienced, but it's also humility, right? It's also recognizing each guy's limitations, each team's limitations and respecting the capabilities of the other unit, the other guys and their tools and picking the tool that is best for the job and not saying, well, this my handle. I'm going to do it. It's like, "Hey, this guy could solve this problem better than I can."

John Montenegro: I always say if you all can pull in the same direction, it is so much easier.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

John Montenegro: Than trying to compartmentalize anything. So having that conversation with each other that, okay, he knows enough of our barricade procedure. He's been on a lot of barricades. He knows what we're kind of planning on doing. So let's lock that down. Okay. But they still got guys out there potential hostage problems. If this guy continues to move and get in a structure we need guys freed up for that. So that's still part of the problem.

It's the ability to communicate with each other again on that first-name basis. Like, this is what we need to accomplish and get it done for as a whole. It's a win for everybody.

Jon Becker: Guys, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for doing it.

John Montenegro: I appreciate it.

Steve Williams: Yeah, thanks for having us.

John Montenegro: If there's an agency out there looking, it is worth the effort. It is worth the effort to truly get integrated at a deep level.

Jon Becker: I love it. Thank you.