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Special Response Team

 

 

SPECIAL RESPONSE TEAM (SRT)

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Special Response Team (SRT) was formed in 1999, under the tenure of former Sheriff Boe Fontaine.  The Mission of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office SRT is to bring a successful conclusion to critical high-risk situations, through the use of specially equipped and highly trained personnel, in such a fashion as to minimize the risk of harm to the citizens of our community, law enforcement personnel and suspects.  The SRT was created to deal with critical high risk incidents. The tactical team has the responsibility of answering to sensitive, potentially life-threatening situations utilizing specialized equipment and tactics to resolve them in as peaceful a manner as possible. This responsibility requires a great deal of training and readiness. Some situations may include: high-risk search and arrest warrant service, hostage rescue, and building searches for dangerous suspects.

The team is prepared to assume full control of specific tactical situations which, by nature, would be considered excessively dangerous and complex, or which would require the use of a specialized team effort, rather than independent action by individual officers.

The SRT consists of a team commander, team leader, assistant team leader and the remaining team members that make up entry personnel, perimeter personnel and a sniper team. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office maintains trained hostage/crisis negotiators in a separately assigned function. The tactical team trains regularly.  

The members of the SRT are assigned to different divisions of the agency as their primary duty assignment. The SRT is a secondary assignment for which all members must be a fully qualified law enforcement officer in the state of Arkansas and must have firearms proficiency qualifications at a higher standard than that of a regular member of the Sheriff's Office.

All team members are volunteers and are on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. 

The duties clearly defined are; but are not limited to;

  • "High risk" Search Warrants
  • Search Warrants
  • Arrest Warrants 
  • Narcotics Warrants
  • Surveillance
  • Counter- Surveillance
  • Armed Suspects
  • Narcotics Raids 

"Successful resolution of the aforementioned incidents and occurrences require a total team effort on the part of all elements of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office."