On 1 October 2009 in Verdrag the National Commissioner personally launched an elite team, called the Tactical Response Team (TRT), a new brainchild of the National Commissioner to meet the medium to high security risk needs of stations and clusters.
These teams, with a minimum of 50 members per cluster (responsible for between five to seven police stations), are being capacitated with knowledge, skills, and specialised equipment to effectively deal with these medium to high risk demands. The knowledge and skills is being acquired through intensive and specialised rural and urban eight to ten week training.
The tasks at hand are of a very demanding nature, therefore, a very strict selection process is encouraged here. The intensity of the training is depicted in the number of police that actually pass the training programme. Between 120 and 140 members apply to be in this unit and ultimately only 40 actually make the training. Nominees must be no older than 40 years, possess physical ability and physical fitness, to be assessed similar to the battery of tests which are generally administered to new recruits and members must be prepared to be deployed within the province and externally. Thus far, for the three clusters (Pretoria, Durban and Johannesburg) 120 (40 per cluster) have successfully completed the training programme and are being deployed.
The training is at the same level as the national intervention unit comprising of different levels and encompasses the weapons phase, urban phase, rural phase, operational simulations, unarmed combat (every day during training), advanced crowd management, platoon commander training for section leaders / platoon commanders focussing on command and control skills, operational commander training for unit commander and deputy focussing on operational planning and managing of medium risk policing operations.
The total training time for platoon members is eight weeks but for unit commanders it is an additional two weeks (ten weeks).
Role and function of Tactical Response Team
The primary function will be crime combating (focussing on addressing crime through well planned intelligence driven operations).
The secondary function will be to restore public order (crowd management). Additional functions will include escorting of dangerous criminals, providing tactical assistance to other units within the cluster, policing of sporting events and support during disaster and incident management.
We have begun a pilot project in the Pretoria Central Cluster. At the launch of the TRT concept, the National Commissioner had promised that more teams will be trained, initially for the greater metropolitan areas (Pretoria, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban) before the end of December and then for the long term, TRTs for all other clusters throughout South Africa will be trained and deployed. Since the launch we have trained the Durban and Johannesburg teams leaving us with Port Elizabeth and Cape Town to be achieved by this target date.
“I have constantly expressed my ambitions to having higher and more permanent interventions on the ground to deal with the more serious criminal situations and these aspirations are bearing fruit,” said Commissioner Bheki Cele. “Today you have witnessed the graduation of the Durban and Johannesburg teams and my having the pleasure to further capacitate them sustainably with specialised equipment,” added Commissioner Cele.
Enquiries:
Nonkululeko Mbatha
Cell: 083 645 6252
Vishnu Naidoo
Cell: 082 567 4153
Issued by: South African Police Service
6 November 2009
