DOUBLE CHECKING WEAPONS … Fulton County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Justin Galbraith (in green) completes a weapons check to ensure special response team officers are carrying no ammunition in their weapons or on their persons prior to training room clearing in the old Wauseon Racquetball Club building.
By: Jesse Davis
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
jesse@thevillagereporter.com
As Fulton County law enforcement officers work to keep residents safe and to be prepared for any eventuality, they have come together across agencies to create a new special response team.
The team was assembled under the auspices of the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office and consists of six deputies, four Archbold Police Department officers, three Wauseon Police Department officers, and two Swanton Police Department officers.
“Wauseon and Napoleon – once upon a time – had a team,” team leader and FCSO Sergeant Justin Galbraith said.
“Over the years, through the changing of administration and changing of officers, that team just went away.”
“We’ve had several incidents over the years where we’ve had to use SRT or a SWAT team, in general we just had to depend on Toledo PD to come this way, which that can take a pretty good amount of time.”
He said there are no tactical teams in the rural areas west of Toledo, while Toledo itself along with the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office and the Wood County Sheriff’s Office each have their own special response team.
“We felt the need to try to establish something in this vicinity so we can drastically reduce response time if something arose where we needed a special response team,” Galbraith said.
“Your high-risk calls, whether it be a barricaded person, high risk warrant service regarding numerous felonies or armed subjects, any kind of hostile situation, active shooters.”
Each officer on the new team has gone through a basic SWAT operator course through the Ohio Tactical Officers Association. According to Galbraith, the SRT officers are “more of your tactically squared away people – physically fit, team oriented.”
Getting the team started has been no small task, and the officers have been doing monthly training for some time now.
“It’s been in the works for two years, but has really progressed now because we have our [memorandums of understanding] officially signed between the agencies and the county,” Galbraith said.
“A handful of us have already responded to an incident in Swanton a month or two back, a barricaded individual. Our goal, once fully established, is to let all the surrounding agencies know we’re here and available.”
Galbraith specifically pointed out that the SRT isn’t a large expense to taxpayers, that it’s all funded by donations and fundraising.
“We had a gun raffle and we’re looking into doing a reverse raffle sometime this year. We’re still working on other stuff,” he said.
One of the donations was an ambulance recently retired from the Delta Community Fire Department. It has been reconfigured to serve as a mobile command truck, supplied with computers, TVs, team gear, and other items.
