Tulsa Police's SOT Team Gets High Marks In State Competition

The Tulsa Police Department's Special Operations Team recently took part in the 2012 Oklahoma SWAT Games in Enid and came away with some high marks.

Police say the games consisted of five events testing physical fitness, marksmanship, and teamwork.

Tulsa's SOT took first place in the Bus Assault Hostage Rescue event, third place in the Sniper competition and second place overall.

Nine teams from across Oklahoma participated on May 2, 2012.

TPD Officer Perry Lewis took third place in the Sniper competition, hitting a variety of shots from up to 350 yards on clay pigeon targets 3.5 inches in size. The competitors dealt with wind gusts of up to 25 miles per hour.

During the Bus Assault Hostage Rescue event, four TPD officers had to run 75 yards up a steep grade to a waiting school bus. The officers then had to shoot six "hostage taker" targets that were interlaced with "hostage" no-shoot targets. The targets were outside and inside the bus.

The team then rescued a "hostage" dummy by removing it from the bus and carrying it to a safe area outside the bus. Once all the team members had eliminated the "hostage takers", rescued the "hostage" and were at the safe area, the time stopped.

The Tulsa Police team scored first place by completing the task in 43 seconds with 100 percent accuracy with their shots.