Tonawanda, NY (WBEN) The Town of Tonawanda Police say SWAT team operations have been temporarily suspended.
Last Wednesday, operations were suspended. "We will be reconstituting the full SWAT Team this coming year when we can fully get our SWAT Team to minimum manpower standards. In the interim, we have enough tactical team members to address any emergency where tactical officers are required in the Town of Tonawanda and also have arrangements in place should we require additional police assets," says Lt. Tom Haynes in a statement to reporters.
The Town of Tonawanda Police SWAT Team has been in existence for over 30 years. Haynes says since the inception of the SWAT Team the team has fielded a fully staffed Tactical Team that has answered several high risk calls for police service in the Town of Tonawanda and when requested by other agencies.
The TTPD SWAT team is comprised of patrol officers, detectives and staff officers that train together in order to respond to critical incidents on short notice. "Full team call-outs do occur from time to time, but typical responses requiring SWAT officers are often handled at the lowest level with the available SWAT members working in order to resolve the incident," notes Haynes.
The SWAT team recently gathered for a dinner. "Regarding the SWAT dinner at Sinatra’s, the only concerns we needed to address were the actions of Officer (Howard) Scholl that occurred after the dinner," explains Haynes. "Internal discipline regarding SWAT members or any of our officers remains a confidential and personnel matter."
Scholl was suspended pending termination after an internal investigation determined he violated departmental procedures following a crash in January.