This is a great video that shows the difficulties of doing these kind of operations. Being able to secure a house for observation purposes or setting up an ‘alamo’ house for you and your client during a catastrophic attack, will require clearing a building. For that reason, it is good to have some knowledge on how to do such a thing in a high threat environment. And what this video presents, are the kind of obstacles in doing such a thing. In this video, they tried to secure the roof, but it looks like they had company in the basement and did not want get in there and take prisoners. In this case, the Marines just pulled out of the house, and blew it up because that was the safest, simplest and easiest option. I don’t blame them either.
As for training for such things, the military and actual combat experience doing such a thing is a plus for the contractor. Or for you law enforcement guys, SWAT would be a good route, so you could take that into contracting. If you are a civilian, with none of that kind of background and training, your best bet is to seek civilian training. For that, I have to recommend Paul Howe’s Basic SWAT course(1 and 2) that he puts on at his school called CSAT. Do your research, and ask around, and it won’t be hard to find a good reputable school. (more…)