Zanesville Response Team Hostage Training

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – You may have noticed a few ZPD vehicles and officers that were gathered together on the corner of Wayne Avenue and Marietta Street on Wednesday, February 27th.

Busting through the front door of an abandoned house the Zanesville Police Department Special Response Team were training for real-life situations. Lieutenant Derek Shilling said they were training for hostage rescue scenarios.

“We get a lot of calls of domestics and hostage situations so it’s good for us to come into these places and train just as if the real scenario were to happen and we’d be ready for it,” Lieutenant Shilling said.

He said that they will use scenes that they have dealt with in the past or what other agencies have worked with to try and set up the same situation in the house. This is all to help prepare officers for the real thing.

“Just stay back. If we’re set up on a house or something please just stay out of our way and let us do our jobs and just try to stay back the best you can,” Lieutenant Shilling said.

Zanesville officers and firefighters use these abandoned houses to train twice a month for real-life active scenes.