March 12 – 14, 2008
Orange County Sheriff’s Office Range
Orlando, Florida

Congratulations to the Lee County (FL) Sheriff's Office for 1st overall in Team competition and
John Warford of Collier County (FL) Sheriff's Office for 1st place in Individual competition for 2008!
 

March 1st and 2nd, 2007, brought the Florida SWAT Association’s Spring Shoot Out to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office Range. Once again the Florida SWAT Association teamed up with Southern Precision Armory (SPA-Simrad), our gracious sponsor, to bring the finest training and competition to the sniper community. This year we moved the competition up a few weeks to take advantage of the great spring weather we have in Florida. This was especially appropriate this year since we had competing teams from Ohio and Idaho. Our weather has been cool and crisp and the days leading up to the Spring Shoot Out and directly following the Shoot Out were just that, crisp and cool. But just as Florida is tend to do; the two days and one night of the Shoot Out were unseasonably, but yet just perfectly Florida, hot and humid!

This year competition was made outstanding by the great efforts put forth by all the competitors, staff and the Spring Shoot Out Committee. I was questioned the first day as to why we did not have “International” on the name of the event? Some of the teams thought that question came from the Idaho State Police team or the Metro Ohio SWAT team. No, that question came from the team the traveled the farthest, the Kuwait National SWAT team! For the local teams; they traveled 11,652 kilometers, 7240 miles or 6292 nautical miles, approximately!

This years competition opened up with SPS-Simrad putting together a night shooting competition that show cased the unequivocal need for night vision on the scoped rifle. The Lakeland Police Department rose to the challenge of engaging targets at varying distances to 200 yards at night and shined with the fastest time. This stellar performance earned them the prize of Chetek ballistic computer to aid in their counter-sniper duties.

The competition was broken into several stages or locations that contained several courses within each stage. After last years course critiques on my “Walk in the Woods” course, I again decided to ask the girls from the local scout troop to blaze a path for my hard core counter-snipers. “No mud too wet, No briars to deep!” was their motto. From the comments this year from my steely eyed professional practitioners of field craft, stealth and marksmanship; I think the girls lived up to their credo and really earned their merit badges.

Day One

Lewis and Clarke would have been proud of the Lakeland Police Department won the Walk in the Woods stage. And contrary to popular belief they did not run the course in coon skin caps and shoot Kentucky rifles.

Collier County Sheriff’s Office won the Rifle Madness challenge.

Ron Batista’s Tower Challenge lived up to its name by ensure each competitor pushed his abilities to the limit through his courses. The Port St. Lucie Police Department accepted the challenge and won the Tower Challenge.

Day Two

Our returning champions from the Lakeland Police Department were tasked with improving the competition by putting together a stage called, “Make em Count,” and did the competitors have to! The Collier County Sheriff’s Office did make them count and took the prize for this stage.

Sheriff Don Hunter could not have been prouder of the Collier County team who continued to win the “Carnival Games” stage and the “Observation and Barricade” stage. It is easy to see why the Collier County #1 team, comprised of Kris Sutton and John Warford took first place when they won four of the six stages.

The individual first place prize was taken out of state this year by Scott Ward from the Idaho State Police. This was not without a fight though. Steve Helseth from the Port St. Lucie Police Department and John Warford form the Collier County Sheriff’s Office tied up for second place individual and were right on Scott’s heals. I was glad to see good natured ribbing between our friends from the North and our amigos from South Florida. I think the feeling was mutual when the team from Miami-Dade PD told the Idaho State Police team they had never seen mountain men like Grizzly Adams and Mad Jack before and the Idaho team responded with thanks for the complement, Crockett and Tubbs.

Author: Commander Joe Carter, Vice President, Florida SWAT Association
 

• Minimum ½ gallon of water [bottles, canteen, camelback, etc]
• 40 rounds duty ammo
• Additional sight system - binoculars / spotting scope / mono scope
• Range Finder (Optional) or Mil-Dot or Duplex reticle ranging proficient
   [Point, you must be able to accurately estimate ranges]
• Compass
• Camouflage stick or kit – face paint
• Red lens flashlight
• Duty Rain Gear / Poncho / Rain suit (Not some dime store crap you would wear at a football game)
• Note pad / Paper / pen
• Clippers / Wire or Pruning shears
• Lens Cleaning supplies
• Duty Belt [SWAT duty, not Class A gear]
• Duty Radio
• Duty handgun

Equipment not present for inspection before each event will be replaced with a brick!