05.14.11 - 5:49 pm

i can only imagine the sheer terror the experience must invoke for people on the other end of this. the sudden and rapid series of deafening noises. the flash. the shouting. the indiscernible movement in the dark.

and then suddenly youre either dead or in handcuffs, your face pressed painfully hard against the floor, a knee on your neck.

i received a sanitized dose of such an experience on thursday. a morning with the portland police special emergency reaction team or SERT.

i invited brian to join me in the offer my step father extended to help during training exercises. there was talk of paint rounds, attack K9 units, repelling and hostage scenarios. depending on how you look at it, fortunately or unfortunately for brian and i, these guys were pretty exhausted after undergoing four arrest warrants for homicide suspects earlier that morning, four am earlier that morning. these exercises were the last part of their day and they were a bit tired. so they kept them simple and tame. to an extent.

they dressed in green pixelated camouflaged gear. large vests carrying very organized pockets of hand gun rounds, assault rifle rounds and additional flash grenades. attached next to their handgun holster was a military style knife. they wore helmets, boots, communication earpieces. im pretty sure one of the officer was adrian brody, however he never took his sunglasses off so i could not confirm this.

there were four of us. lino. john. brian and myself. sitting in a dark green jimmy just outside the parking structure of the rose garden. one of us had a gun sitting casually on their leg, finger pressed softly against the trigger. there was the noise of a metal object impacting the cement just to the front of the vehicle. suddenly a swarm of heavily armed officers approached from the rear, silent, methodical, precise. the suspect shuffled to get a better view of what was happening, only to have his head pushed down firmly from behind. he was dead. gunshot wound down through the neck into the torso. the other passengers were ordered to put their hands on their head and remain still. one by one, their wrist and arm placed in a crippling vise, they were removed from the vehicle. the body of the suspect remained, limp. eyes beaming from behind plastic safety glasses, a slight smile across his face.

we repeated this a few times with the hostage taker in different seats inside the jimmy.

as the hostages were removed adrian brody, hovering above my dead body with a gun inches from the back of my head, muttered under his breath: "i would have snapped your fucking neck if this were real."

the next scenario involved the same assault team with the addition of two well placed snipers. the hostage taker had three hostages surrounding him as a human shield. the three hostages pressed into him closely for fear of imminent death as they made their way to an unoccupied jimmy sitting out in the open. at first we slowly shuffled toward the vehicle, a slow motion walk through. when lino took control, he organized how and in what order we would get into the jimmy and how he would murder us if we didn't stay close. he taunted us the entire walk to the jimmy. even shoving his friend john into the back seat before the assault team instantly swarmed and he was immediately killed. when john took the gun as the hostage taker, a real criminal mastermind surfaced within him. we all piled into the jimmy effortlessly. only to find john somehow didn't make it inside and was now wandering around the front of the vehicle completely exposed trying to find an empty seat. the snipers took him down, almost embarrassed at how easy it was.

we broke for some chipotle while the team practiced repelling down the sides of the parking garage.

when we awoke from our burrito coma we found ourselves inside a green jimmy sitting the darkness of an empty parking garage. lino was dead in the backseat. seated behind the driver was john, suddenly wearing a khaki vest armed with explosives. directional C4 under his chin. pipe bombs, dynamite and electrical wiring criss crossed his chest, gun firmly in hand. brian and i sat terrified in the front seats. i adjusted the volume on the radio just above a murmur. brian had just enough time to check a few tweets before a dozen pistol mounted flash lights descended upon us like heavenly fireflies outside our open windows. a sniper fired a single shot into johns head. brian and i immediately raised our hands to our heads and let the officers insure we were not wired to any additional explosives. when it was deemed secure we were hastily removed from the vehicle to safety.

surviving the hostage situation was the easy part. the officers of sert made sure of that. its the moving forward with the rest of our lives that will be the struggle.