SWAT team uses old movie theater for tactical training in Covington

COVINGTON, La. (WGNO) — The old Hollywood Theaters building in Covington is set to be demolished, but before that happens, the SWAT team with the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office is utilizing the building for their SWAT training exercises.

WGNO’s Kenny Lopez spent the day with their tactical team.

Throughout the day their SWAT team got real life training for various situations.

“We put a fire hose charge on the the doors. We use that for breaching commercial size doors, big metal doors, things like that. The whole purpose of it is to get into that door, whether it be a hostage situation, an active shooter situation, or something like that. We do it quickly and efficiently,” Lt. Devin Coulon, SWAT commander with the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office said.

Sterling Properties let them use this abandoned building this week for tactical training before it gets demolished.

“This is the most beneficial. Opportunities like this don’t come around that often. Actual commercial buildings like this, we can’t go and close down Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club for training, and put explosives on their doors, this is unique and one-of-a-kind. I mean the movie seats and concession stands are still there,” he said.

Coulon went on to say, “We try to treat it as ‘how would we effectively handle this in a real-world environment.’ We don’t get training like this all the time.”

The St. Tammany Parish Fire Department is also using this old theater to do their training as well.

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