Two members of the Emergency Response Unit work to clear the deserted restaurant in North Bend as a practice tool. The building will serve the fire departments Nov. 4 when it is used as a teaching tool while burning.

LeRoy's open one last time for SWAT training

by Elso Rasmussen
Published 10/26/23

Last Wednesday, Oct. 18, members of the Fremont Police Department, the Dodge County Sheriff’s Department and the Fremont Fire Department met at the shell of LeRoy’s Steakhouse for SWAT training.

The group present was a local SWAT unit, Emergency Response Unit, or ERU. This unit is deployed for high-risk situations and search warrants, such as targets being known to have weapons or stolen weapons.

The ERU trains every month, usually in houses or apartments, but they were glad to have a long, open building to sharpen their skills in. On this day, they were training to clear the building and sweep it for targets.

Paper targets were hung around LeRoy’s Steakhouse for each team to search for. After each round, they discussed how it went, any issues they had, and what they could learn from their mistakes. Then, they moved the targets to a new location for the next team to train. For this routine, they had no live ammunition or practice ammunition, only empty weapons.

They performed a sweep with two human targets, team members who hid themselves within the building. One hid himself beneath the bar and was missed while the team cleared the building. He then came up on the ERU team from behind. This issue was discussed after the round.

Each team member has at least five years experience on the police force and must go through a rigorous application and try-out process before being approved by the ERU. This makes them a particularly qualified group.

“Everyone brings something special to the team,” team commander Brandon Lorenson said. “Every member has specialized training in close quarters combat and in the safest way to clear a room. They also have trained snipers and firearm instructors.”

<<Back to the front page