SWAT Team Member Tackles Training at Police Academy

Dave Olson has tased more people than anyone else in the entire San Angelo Police Department. He doesn’t have a figure for how many, but the list includes just about every rookie officer that has come through the San Angelo police academy over the past eight years.

As 2014’s top training officer, current SWAT team member, former detective and past military trainer, Olson knows his way around weapons and is skilled in teaching how to use them.

“I’m about to [tase] 11 more in a couple weeks,” he laughed. “Our department, every two years we have to have taser recertification…I like doing the taser and the pepper spray. It teaches people, ‘hey, there are other options’. You learn about your options and you learn about these different weapons systems. The taser, it may work it may not [always] work…” he paused briefly. “Now, everybody I’ve tased out here, it’s been effective.”

A Pennsylvania native with an ardor for the outdoors and a background in military intelligence, Olson has lived in San Angelo for the past 23 years. His 11-year career in the air force is what initially drew him down south, but it was the lakes and weather that made him want to stay.

“I got here in ’92,” he said of his return. “I like a lot of outdoors, fishing and hunting, and where I’m originally from those activities are limited to certain times of year. Here, you just go when you want to go. I can’t stand cold weather.”

Initially stationed at Goodfellow Air Force Base in 1986, Olson trained to become an analyst and spent time working at NSA in Maryland before heading overseas to England and Italy before he was offered a training position at GAFB in 1992. By then, he’d also obtained a degree in Communications Technology.

“That’s what I was in, was communications technology,” he said. “All the super secret stuff. Actually, what I did—I was an analyst—I broke out encrypted messages. That’s what my job was. That was pretty fun too.”

Four years after his return to the small town on the Concho, Olson decided it was time for a change. He joined the police department in 1996, having taken only a two-day break between leaving the air force and joining the local department.

“Actually, I applied to the police department while I was in the military,” he explained. “I knew it was time to do something different…so when I applied, they accepted me at the PD and I had less than a year to go on my enlistment…and I had to go to my commander to get out of the air force to become a police officer. I got out on a Friday and I started on a Monday.”

Olson started out on patrol as everyone does, and after three years, he transferred to the PD’s former gang unit, where he spent a year and half entrenched in organized crime. While he was working gangs, the unit was merged with the Criminal Investigations Division and he transitioned to white-collar crime.

“When the chief got elected he wanted to have a fraud unit,” he said. “Four guys, four detectives working on forgeries and stuff and I was asked to do that. So I did that until I got out of CID. That was a lot of fun, working that—identity theft and all that. ‘Cause you always have evidence.”

In 2008, he transferred from CID to training, where he has remained since. He also made the SWAT team that year, despite breaking his hip at some point during the tryouts and continuing on.

“I like that job. That’s fun,” Olson said with heavy enthusiasm and a telling grin. “I break the doors down and gas the houses. I live for that. That’s fun.”

Olson admitted that the job is both dangerous and scary at times, but described a need to keep emotions in check and use them to one’s advantage in order to stay alive.

“In this job as a police officer, if you’re not scared, there’s something wrong with you,” he said. “Now being afraid, that means you’re a coward. Being scared, it brings all your senses into focus. You realize it’s potentially dangerous, but there’s a mission to get done, so let’s get it done,” he paused. “We get it done.”

Although physically demanding, Olson intends remain on the SWAT team until he can no longer commit mentally or physically. The position has enveloped the officer in countless volatile situations over the years, experience he takes with him to the training academy and lessons passed on to his students. His ability to handle those situations is traced back to his training, which is part of the reason he loves the job he’s currently in.

“To me, I think your training is paramount, and that’s what I instill in these guys,” he said. “I was on the department almost 11 years before I came out here and I’m still learning,” he said. “Just getting experience and being exposed to different situations, plus meeting new people, it’s a constant learning experience. If you don’t make it a learning experience, it’s time to stop.”

Recently, Olson was awarded Support Services Officer of the Year for his hard work in the training division. He was also nominated the department's Officer of the Month for June. As one of the trainers for the police department, he teaches the nearly 1,200-hour curriculum all officers go through during the initial seven-month academy, plus a smattering of other courses including use of force and anything tactical, active shooter classes, radar use and patrol procedures, to name a few.

The training schedule is set a year in advance, Olson said, and includes courses both for new rookie officers and for in-service officers, who must maintain and refresh certain certifications on an annual basis. A large portion of that training includes physical fitness, and Olson heads that training up as well.

“Physical fitness is kind of like a savings account,” he said. “You have to work hard because every time you work out, you’re making deposits. Because there’s going to be that day you’re going to need to make a withdrawal, and you better have enough to make a withdrawal. If not, you’re going to get killed.”

After each SWAT call Olson goes on, he picks up the phone and calls his wife. "The only thing she asks is that I call her when it’s over so she knows I’m alive," he said. "She's very supportive of me in this job."

Olson is a father of two, with a 15-year-old son who hopes to become a prosecutor and a 13-year-old following her father’s shoes with the ambition of either joining the air force or becoming a policewoman. His wife of 21 years is retired military and hails from Iowa, while Olson grew up in Pennsylvania. The two met in the air force and connected in San Angelo.

“We were stationed together in Italy and of course we went our separate ways. Then when I was stationed here, she was stationed at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio. And she found out I was here and she calls one day…and then we started dating again and I let her marry me,” he joked.

Olson and his family intend to stay in San Angelo indefinitely, and he hopes to continue training officers until it's time to retire. 

"I'm going to do it as long as I can," he said. "Department needs come first, so if they say, 'we're going to move you', then so be it. But I hope I'm doing a good job out here."