SWAT Team Rescues Hostage at Safety Fair

I attended the Redondo Beach Police Department's 2010 Annual Public Safety Fair at Civic Center yesterday afternoon as a volunteer with the South Bay Bicycle Coalition's bike corral service.  I was there to help provide a safe and easy place to park your bike and to do some outreach on behalf of the South Bay Bicycle Master Plan, for which Redondo Beach is the lead city.

As always, I'm focused on cutting our pollution and greenhouse gas emissions here in the South Bay by encouraging people to take advantage of our typically great bike riding weather and use their bicycles instead of their cars whenever they can.

It was heartening to see so many kids turn out with their bicycles for the bike rodeo and safety lessons the RBPD offered.  As a bicycle advocate I know how important it is that our children have safe, easy places to ride and that they get confidence that encouragement from their heroes, the police men and women gives them.

Despite the cool overcast day plenty of families were on hand to check out the exhibits and watch the police and fire departments stage some very cool and very up close and personal demonstrations of emergency responses.

The clear crowd favorite of the day was the RBPD's response to a carjacking and kidnapping crime scenario. All of us at the fair stopped whatever we were doing and lined the sidewalk to watch the good guys take on the bad guys.

After a RBPD motorcycle officer used a simulated nail strip to stop the suspect's white Volvo and a cainine unit dog easily captured one of the two suspects, the hostage and remaining suspect refused to leave the vehicle.  That's when the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit was called in to resolve the crisis.

Resolve it they did, much to the delight of the audience.

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