Citizen's Academy: SWAT

My dad invited us to join my brother-in-law and him in a Citizen's Academy.  It is a 10 week class put on by the police department to teach citizens about all the different aspects of their job.  We are taking it in Riverdale City, where the Chief of Police is my dad's neighbor.

The first week after orientation we got to go out to the SWAT training facility in Ogden.  They showed us a lot of the tools and gear they need to do their jobs.  We got to tour the training facility where they have a miniature city set up for practicing all kinds of different scenarios.

After the tour of that facility, we drove down the street to their live range.  They have a standard shooting range, and a house set up for scenarios.  We got to go in a room of the house wearing protective gear where they did a live fire exercise.  They threw a flash bang in first (or as the instructor calls it, a 'noise flash diversion device') and then three guys in full gear came in and shot our targets (which were mullet-headed guys holding a child hostage).  The whole thing only took a couple of seconds.  It was really cool.  The flash bang was pointed straight at me and went off about 3 feet away.

Here's the boys in their gear:

After that demonstration, we all got to go to the shooting range and shoot a full clip in both a 9mm handgun:

And a fully automatic M9. (Sorry no pictures of that - the light was really awful.)  It was the first time I have even gotten to shoot a full auto.  It was pretty fun, but I imagine it was also pretty expensive.