By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

If you barricade yourself in Cape Elizabeth, you just might find yourself looking down the barrel of a gun owned by the city of South Portland or Scarborough.

Williams and South Portland SWAT Team Commander Todd Bernard both said officers from the two towns have benefited by training and responding to calls together. Last week the South Portland City Council unanimously supported a proposal to create the “Southern Maine Regional SWAT Team Policy,” adding Scarborough to the mix of resources.

“Most of the calls were high-risk warrants, and a couple of barricades,” Bernard said. “We’ll respond to any type of barricade or hostage situations, we have also helped arrest dangerous fugitives. We routinely back each other up and we have a really good working relationship with [Cape Elizabeth and Scarborough] anyway. It’s a natural fit.”

Scarborough Police Chief Robert Moulton said his eight SWAT officers also were used to training with those from the other two departments. 

“We’ve been doing this for a long time now, both South Portland and Cape Elizabeth are really good partners,” Moulton said. “This is to really make it more formal.”

Half of the new regional entity will consist of 10 South Portland officers, who will work with eight Scarborough officers and two from Cape Elizabeth, according to an initial draft of the policy, Bernard said. Moulton said the Scarborough town council would most likely not need to approve the formation of the Southern Maine Regional SWAT Team, since South Portland, the participating municipality with the most members, had already approved it.

“It’s in the hands of my town manager now,” he said.

Under the agreement, each municipality will provide its members, who are also regular police officers with normal duties, with equipment. 

Bernard said the regionalization effort will help the department by reducing the current 12-man team to 10 members. 

“It really represents a savings for us because that’s two less guys you have to outfit,” Bernard said, estimating the cost of equipment for one SWAT team member – including body armor, helmet, uniforms, boots and special goggles – to be more than $3,000. 

Benefits for other towns aren’t necessarily fiscal. Williams said Cape Elizabeth has never had its own official SWAT team and had to rely on the assistance of the other towns when it responded to a domestic disturbance last fall. 

“We don’t have a lot of call for it, but you never know, we need to be prepared,” he said. “By having this agreement at least we have men on that team who have some insight of the [Cape Elizabeth] community.”

Moulton said the Scarborough SWAT team will remain the same size, but have the option to request officers from neighboring communities for situations that require a rapid response. 

While no deaths have ever resulted from SWAT deployments in Scarborough, he said officers were forced to shoot and kill a deaf man in a Hannaford parking lot with a rifle in 2001 before the team arrived, he said. 

“There are those times when the conditions are such we end up with no choice,” Moulton said of the shooting. 

“But generally, time is on our side in those instances.”

Bernard said the South Portland SWAT responded to 13 calls in 2008, “a busy year” for the region’s largest team. 

He said last year was the first time a death had occurred during a SWAT operation, and involved a barricaded suspect on Main Street.

  Staff Writer Nate Jones may be reached at 282-4337 ext. 233.