OGDEN — The hostage sat on the old, beat-up couch with his hands behind his back. Sitting next to him in a chair was his captor, his gun lying on the table.
Outside the door, SWAT team members poised themselves in a line, a battering ram ready for the door.
In an instant, the door burst open and a small, blue canister bounced across the floor. The flash grenade went off, temporarily blinding the men but allowing SWAT teams to quickly burst through the doors and windows, and take the captor down.
By the time the smoke cleared and the shouting stopped, both men were on the ground in handcuffs. Above them, a half-dozen police officers stood on a catwalk, critiquing the entire scenario.
Members of the Ogden Metro SWAT team used that scenario Tuesday to officially open a state-of-the-art training facility.
"This is awesome," said Weber County Sheriff Brad Slater.
At the training center, located inside a warehouse at an Ogden-area industrial park, police officers from all over have the opportunity to train for any conceivable scenario.
"This is about as realistic as you can get without doing a live operation," said Ogden Metro SWAT commander Lt. Tony Fox.
The northwest corner of the Swanson Family Foundation warehouse has been converted into a SWAT training ground, paid for by the nonprofit group and built by Big D Construction.
"Law enforcement all over is underfunded," said Chuck Swanson, the chairman of his family's foundation. "Our tax dollars don't do enough."
The rest of the warehouse is filled with boxes of medical supplies and household goods for the Swanson Family Foundation's charitable giving. Behind a camouflage curtain, police can train in either a replica of a house or a two-story motel. Great attention has been paid to detail, from the box of Corn Pops sitting on a refrigerator to butcher paper rolls above the windows, pulled down to simulate curtains.
Before the facility was built, Fox said SWAT teams would train in condemned houses that were often stripped of furniture. In addition to furniture, police have installed four re-breachable doors allowing police to practice different tactics for barging into a potentially dangerous situation.
Observing the entire scenario are 16 cameras, allowing police to watch and hear SWAT teams in action. The cameras are equipped with infrared capabilities, for when officers practice in total darkness. Microphones allow observers to hear what's going on.
"What did they say? What impact did that have? You can hear the emotion in their voice," said Assistant Ogden Police Chief Randy Watt.
That will come in handy for rookie police officers who will use the facility to train for emergency calls ranging from burglaries-in-progress to domestic violence. Already, K9s have been here training for drug searches and violent situations requiring a police dog.
"You can observe, critique and make them do it again until they get it right," Fox said.
The Swanson Family Foundation has arranged for the facility to be available 24 hours a day, free for any law enforcement agency that requests it.
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com