Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Troy Irvine on August 27, 2007 at 2:26pm

I am currently attached with the Port Arthur Police Dept. SWAT team. Under Texas concealed handgun law I was able to carry a side arm during call outs. After some deliberation the fire chief thought this added increased liability, so I am currently not carrying. Whenever I am deployed to the hot zone, I am accompanied by a SWAT opereator as cover.

Permalink Reply by Gary Moseley on December 7, 2007 at 6:45pm

I am a full time police officer so of course I carry all the time. My primary role is as a tactical officer on the entry team, but I am the tactical paramedic for our team also. I carry a Kimber .45 Tactical and an M-4 with every bell and whistle you can imagine.

Gary
Cleburne PD SWAT (Texas)

Permalink Reply by firemedic27 on December 12, 2007 at 5:49am

We for me, we are employed by a privite ambulance company, and are attatched to a large city PD SWAT team, our primary wepones are MP-5 w/ opitc sights, and are side arms are Sig 226. we are paged out by our dispatch and PD shift commander, we respond with our own tactical ambulance and our tactical van.

Permalink Reply by M Clark on May 8, 2008 at 10:37am

I have to agree with Troy on this. The issue of carrying a side arm is agency dependent but largely hinges on two factors. Legality and liability. In the continental United States, most agencies allow a medic to carry, but when it goes to liability, agencies tend to change their thought process. I have wrote on this at length and if you would like to view the article, go to goarticles.com and type in tactical medical response initiatives. This is free so don't worry about cost. I hope that this will be helpful.

Permalink Reply by SWATrauma on October 28, 2008 at 7:09pm

Our local tactical paramedic team works with several of the local police SWAT teams in our area.......specifically 2 city police agencies as well as 2 county teams....Each police department has their own SOP on when they do and do not deploy our team with their SWAT calls. Our team itself is called an S.R.T team. If you look at my profile you will see the patch that im proud to say i designed for our team.

As far as firearms go, as I am still employed by my EMS agency on all deployments, I am still bound by the rules and regulations there and we are not allowed to carry a firearm of any kind.

I know that if we were allowed to carry a sidearm that most of the police agencies we run with would probably not allow that unless we trained with the teams on firearms standards as well as our current training.

We are however familiar with all firearms utilized in the various teams we work with and are able to safely secure any weapons utilized by the teams.

Permalink Reply by Chris Harris on November 22, 2008 at 9:11am

Myself and my partner both are NYSEMT's and work for the local Sheriffs Office as Corrections Officers. We are members of the CERT team and SWAT team for our agency and are trained as Tactical Medics. We are qualified to carry Glock 40cal. and are trained in all other weapons if needed: MP5, Bennelli/Auto 12ga., and .223 w/ Eotech sights.
We work normal 40hr weeks and are paged out if needed for call outs.