Exercise Redquest
West Midlands Police officers
made a splash as their Water
Search Team joined a series
of strategic training events
run in conjunction with the
Corps of Royal Engineers, who
serve regular tours in Afghanistan
providing bomb disposal
and counter-terrorist search
services.
Exercise Redquest was organised
by West Midlands
Police Operational Support Unit
(OSU) and involved around 70
members of police staff and 25
army personnel. It was an opportunity to share
equipment knowledge and find
out about updates to each
other’s search procedures in
preparation for October’s Conservative
Party Conference in
Birmingham.
The two organisations will
be working together to provide
security support for the event. Sergeant Richard Demers said:“This exercise gives us the opportunity
to practice and hone
our search skills, which can
be called on at any time to
support West Midlands Police
investigations.
“All three divisions of the OSU
took part in what was a significant
exercise with a fictional
scenario. At the same time,
Redquest enabled us to get to
know the army personnel we
will be liaising with later in the
year.”
The four-day event included
a demonstration by the Water
Search Team (pictured) as part
of an extensive venue-search
scenario at Wolverhampton Science
Park and police and army
personnel carried out searches
of four 44-ton vehicles and the
exercise concluded at RAF Cosford
with a demonstration of
open-air procedures.
Sgt Demers commented:“All the venues provided their
services free of charge. We
are grateful for their input, because
without their support this
exercise couldn’t effectively go
ahead. In recognition of their
contribution, we presented
each of them with a plaque of
thanks.”
On the final day the OSU
team presented a cheque to
the Corps of Royal Engineers
for over £2,000 to the Help
for Heroes charity. The money
was raised by Sgt Gareth Morris
and a team of officers who
took part in a sponsored walk
across Mount Toubkal in the
Atlas Mountains of Morocco.
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