McHenry County SWAT team continues reach to outside police departments

WOODSTOCK – A group of police officer armed with AR-15 semi-automatic rifles jump out of the back of a towering Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected military vehicle and barrel toward a wounded officer lying in the middle of a gravel path.

Shots ring out, followed by the sound of shells hitting the ground.

“Let’s move, let’s move, let’s move,” one of the men yells as they rush back to the MRAP with an officer in their arms.

Among the men is Josh Fourdyce, a Woodstock police sergeant who until recently would not have been part of such an operation.

It’s all a drill, one being run by the McHenry County Sheriff’s interdepartmental SWAT team to test members’ capabilities in the field.

A year after the McHenry County Board voted to allow Sheriff Bill Prim to open SWAT membership to other jurisdictions in McHenry County, more than 20 percent of the 24-member team is made up of officers from police departments other than the sheriff’s office.

In time, leaders hope the team will reach 30 members, with half coming from city departments.

“When you think about becoming a police officer, you think about going to get bad guys, saving people, protecting people, and I think once you’ve spent a little while as a beat cop, you realize that it’s not all that adrenaline stuff where you’re saving people,” Fourdyce said.

“This was my chance to be part on a team where your major goal is to be part of a team and go for the bad guys.”

The team hasn’t – and won’t – expand for the sake of getting bigger, Cmdr. Alex Embry said. Officers who want to join have to pass a battery of tests measuring their physical and mental prowess and ability to fire a gun in a timed setting. Then, they complete a face-to-face interview.

Once on the team, SWAT officers go through annual physical and firing tests.

So far, officers from Woodstock, Lake in the Hills and Algonquin have qualified and been selected.

“It’s probably the best thing I’ve seen done to our SWAT team since I’ve been a part of it,” Embry said.

One of the benefits he sees to opening membership to other departments is that it allows for the cost to be spread out across the county. Municipalities are responsible for providing the uniform and equipment for their officers. For instance, the intergovernmental agreement Woodstock signed to allow Fourdyce to join called for about $6,500 in training, equipment and ammunition costs.

There’s also the matter of manpower. Having officers from municipal departments makes it easier for the sheriff’s office to deploy or hold monthly SWAT team trainings while still meeting its patrol staffing obligations.

“Additionally, bringing people on from the outside motivates our people internally,” Embry said. “When it’s just your people, there’s a tendency to get a little complacent. When you bring in outside agencies, no one wants to be the slacker, so everyone works way harder when we have individuals from outside agencies.”

Officers also bring knowledge of their municipality to the team and can bring their training and skills back to their normal departments.

The SWAT team is deployed under a very narrow set of circumstances, Embry said, acknowledging the increased scrutiny SWAT teams are under nationwide.

In the past two years, the team has been used to execute search warrants in Woodstock, Harvard and Wonder Lake. The team responded to Holiday Hills on Oct. 16, 2014, when Scott Peters opened fire on McHenry County Sheriff's deputies Dwight Maness and Khalia Satkiewicz. McHenry County's was the first SWAT team to respond to Fox Lake police Lt. Joseph Gliniewicz's shooting on Sept. 1.

“When we do need it, we want to be highly trained, highly skilled and on point to do our job,” Embry said. “Being able to work in concert with other departments, multijurisdictionally, is a bonus for that.”