Members of the Erie County Sheriff's SWAT team are on call around the clock to respond to local incidents. But Chief of Special Services, Scott Patronik says, at many venues, to speed up response times in the event of an emergency, the SWAT team is ready on site.
"Many of the large events in the county we provide tactical services to. It's basically working in cooperation with venue management and venue security. And we basically will lay out a plan to help augment them in the case of an attack such as this," Patronik said.
The Sheriff's SWAT team and patrol division train on a regular basis for a variety of incidents. But Captain Warren Hawthorn says the Las Vegas shooter's high rise location won't necessarily change the nature of their training because it's always evolving.
"Optimally what you want to do is prepare for the unknown threat. And at the Erie County Sheriff's office, both on the SWAT team and in the patrol division, that's what we attempt to do," Hawthorn said.
Patronik says, like all incidents nationally and internationally the members of the Sheriff's office will be looking at the Las Vegas shooting and try to put together countermeasures to protect people from the new type of attack.