A-K Valley SWAT team operational after delays last year

A new special response team made up of officers from several police departments in the Alle-Kiski Valley is up and running and has been deployed twice this year.

The team’s first dispatch was a high-risk search warrant in New Kensington in early January, said Thomas Seefeld, chief of the Murrysville Police Department and one of the new team’s administrators.

Last week, the team was deployed again to Washington Township to issue another high-risk search warrant. During the search of a residence on Edgewood Drive, police recovered heroin, cocaine, drug paraphernalia, a semi-automatic handgun and nearly $4,000. Officers from Washington Township, Murrysville, Lower Burrell, Upper Burrell and Vandergrift responded to the call.

Officers began receiving specialized training for the new Community Emergency Response Team in October 2019, said Seefeld.

“We had to go through the process of making sure everything was according to law,” Seefeld said. “So, that took time.”

Lower Burrell and New Kensington already have a SWAT-like team, but a Supreme Court ruling in May delayed the implementation of the larger, regional group. The court ruled municipalities must enact ordinances under the state’s Intergovernmental Cooperation Act to allow police to make arrests outside their home municipalities. The case overturned a woman’s drunken-driving conviction in Allegheny County.

The case delayed the formalization of the team, bound by a mutual aid agreement, among New Kensington, Lower Burrell, Upper Burrell, Vandergrift, Washington Township, Murrysville and Allegheny Township. Several municipalities were concerned about joining the task force until a more definitive framework was established.

Kathy Starr, an Allegheny Township supervisor, said her township is waiting to reach an agreement over who would pay for the officers’ insurance and other budgetary questions.

Allegheny Township Police Chief Duane Fisher is hopeful the community will reach an acceptable proposal sometime in February or March. He said two of his officers are training with the team, but without the passage of a formal ordinance, they cannot be deployed.

Fisher predicts funding the team will be a “cooperative effort,” and he said team leaders are working to secure grant funding for operating and equipment costs. Overall, he said, the team is a valuable resource that he is determined to have his department participate in.

“It just makes everybody a better police officer, a safer police officer,” Fisher said.

Most officers on the team are available to be deployed to respond to high-risk search warrants, active shooter events, barricaded subjects or similar incidents.

The team was not deployed at all last year. The state police’s emergency response team would have handled all necessary incidents before the community team was established, Seefeld said.

“Our hope is to have a quicker response and have the necessarily trained officers and special equipment to handle any kind of incident,” Seefeld said.

Since October 2019, the team acquired advanced tactical equipment, including body armor and armored vehicles. Officers participated in monthly tactical training sessions. The team is led by an Administrative Oversight Committee, which comprises Murrysville, New Kensington and Lower Burrell police chiefs.

Chief Bob Deringer of the New Kensington Police Department, another of the team’s administrators, did not respond to requests for comment. The Lower Burrell Police Department, which is in transition after former Chief Tim Weitzel stepped down at the beginning of the year, did not respond to requests for comment.

The team is made up of seven municipalities and will have about 18 members once all ordinances are final, Seefeld said. Each participating municipality contributes a number of officers to the team proportionate with the police department’s size. Murrysville has four officers on the team.