SUMTER, S.C. (AP) - The garage door slid open, and a 27-ton armored truck emerged from its bay with the foreboding poise of a steam locomotive.
The 54,000-pound transporter, a hulking military-styled tactical vehicle known as the MRAP Caiman, eased into a hazy junkyard behind the Sumter County Public Works armory amid a backdrop of battered, disabled and outdated squad cars and patrol vehicles. The tires of the massive truck dug into the sod as it turned to exit the armory, leaving deep tracks in the fresh mud.
More than a dozen officers from across the state came onto the grounds of Sumter County Sheriff’s Office last month to train on how to operate the weapons-resistant combat vehicle. Among them was Sumter County Deputy Jeff Hofer, who’s served as the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle driver since last year.
“It’s an armored vehicle we can deploy to an active shooter situation,” Cpl. Hofer said. “It can get us right up front, close and personal with them. We can have the whole (SWAT Team) safe and in the vehicle to get us inside that building and get the scene safe and secure.”
The federal government donated the vehicle to Sumter County Sheriff’s Office last year as an addition to its Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team. The bullet-proof vehicle is cased in reinforced steel and aluminum and built to veer into such perilous situations as hostage standoffs and dangerous terrain.
The MRAPs were part of a federal program last year in which retired U.S. military vehicles used in the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan were given to local law enforcement agencies across the country. The vehicles are designed to withstand explosions and ambushes, and authorities said it can literally drive through buildings.
Sumter County Chief Deputy Hampton Gardner said the vehicle is meant for special operations and noted the department used it during a drug raid last year that yielded more than $200,000 in seizures. Deputies responded to that scene thinking the suspects were armed with semi-automatic weapons and used the MRAP as a precaution.
Sixteen officers from 13 state agencies, such as Allendale Police Department, as well as Calhoun and Dorchester county sheriffs’ offices, participated in Thursday’s training session.
“It teaches them how to maneuver the vehicle and how to handle that vehicle when they’re out utilizing it,” Gardner said. “Training is always a plus and something that they need to be able to operate in the event they’re actually driving it.”
Brandon Montney, of DG Technology, was one of the trainers on hand to teach the officers such skills as preventative maintenance and proper driving skills.
“It’s really needed by law enforcement,” Montney said. “We’re out here providing them with the training because there’s not many people that can do it, and we’re fully capable of doing it.”
The vehicle came under scrutiny when the sheriff’s office received it last year, with critics arguing the agency would not use the high-priced item for ordinary police work. Sumter County Sheriff Anthony Dennis at the time said the MRAP was one of the department’s most important pieces of equipment and was meant to be used in extreme situations. Officials have reinforced those sentiments, describing the armored trucks as a near necessity.
“Whenever you have extreme situations, you want to be able to have an extreme response to that,” sheriff’s office spokesman Braden Bunch said. “The beauty of having this vehicle here at the sheriff’s office is that, while there are other agencies across the state that have these types of vehicles, this gives us a quicker response time to certain situations. We don’t have to wait for a day for the vehicle to get here, or even just a couple hours.”
The need for the sessions seemed to become apparent early on during the driving runs as the first group to traverse the route from the Public Works building down a gravelly road to Sumter-Lee Regional Detention Center got stuck in the mud.
“This is why we train,” Bunch said.
___
Information from: The Sumter Item, https://www.theitem.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.