by Jolene Toves

Guam - It was graduation day for dozens of Guam's law enforcement personnel who have been undergoing weeks of SWAT training. Today was the big day a culmination of training received over the last several weeks.

Government Training Institute director Dennis O'Connor said, "This is our final scenario; it's a terrorist related scenario involving hostages for the past three weeks the have been practicing different tactics in the event there is a large scale incident it doesn't have to be a terrorist incident but we prepare them for worst case scenario of a terrorist incident. Guam's SWAT team wrapped up three weeks of training today. 27 local law enforcement personnel from various agencies came together to complete the specialized training delivered by the Government Training Institute.

Close to 30 law enforcers from various GovGuam agencies including the Guam Police Department, the Department of Corrections, the Guam Airport Police and the Judiciary of Guam have been undergoing a Type III Advanced SWAT Training Course. The course was created to standardize SWAT training throughout the U.S.

GTI trainer Phil Davis told KUAM News, "All the teams that we train all go through the same exact training, so first say the teams here the Marshalls the Airport Police, GPD, if they were to come to a scene they would all know how to feed off each other and use same tactics so there wouldn't be confusion."

Participants were schooled in terrorism, improvised explosive devices, range shooting skills as well as the introduction of new equipment available during a crisis.

The specialized training was funded by the Guam Homelamd Security Grant Program.