BANGOR, Maine — Anyone who witnessed a group of law enforcement officers wearing bulletproof vests and with guns drawn raiding 3 Charles St. on Thursday can relax. It was a training exercise.
One group, led by an officer carrying a metal black shield, went to the front door, while a second group went to the back of the two-story house on the corner of Ohio Street.
The only indication that the incident was training was a little white sign posted out front.
“It’s special response team training. It is the second half of training that started last week,” Sgt. Tim Cotton, spokesman for the Bangor Police Department, said Thursday in an email. “The instructors are from the National Tactical Officers Association and are from Connecticut.”
The special response team is made up of crime scene investigators from around Maine. The group that trained Thursday included officers from Bangor and other Maine communities and from departments from Massachusetts, Cotton said.
“There are numerous scenarios and they have been training at locations all over Bangor for the last two weeks,” Cotton said. “The training will finish up tomorrow.”