A SWAT-like team called the Regional Support Tactical Team (RSTT) displayed their equipment to the Morden police board in December and demonstrated the necessity of the team's existence in the area.

Advanced body armour and tactical weapons, lethal and non-lethal, are among the RSTT's tools to act on drug and gun warrants. The RSTT has seized weapons and drugs through high-risk operations around 20 times since it's beginning in 2014.

"We did a presentation in regards to how we operate, the amount of equipment we use, [and] things that we need in the future," said constable Jonathan Goertzen, the man who started and leads the RSTT.

"We've made policing safer for police officers in our region," he added.

Dec. 15, 2016, a few members of the RSTT shared the work they've done with the Morden police board.

Goertzen is planning for the team's future, that means asking for funding to back the purchase of major equipment. Currently at the top of his wish list is a vehicle large enough to transport the entire nine officer team to each warrant location. Right now the team needs to squeeze into several regular squad cars while wearing their heavy body armour which can add 80 lbs or more onto each officer.

"It's almost impossible," Goertzen said.

Members of the RSTT are put through monthly training exercises with more specialized weapons. Regular patrol officers are not equipped or trained for these higher-risk situations. Goertzen emphasized that the semi-automatic rifles and high-grade protective armour are more than necessary.

"Usually when there is drugs, there's weapons, and vice versa, there's weapons with drugs," Goertzen said.

"We never know exactly what we're going into," he said.

The RSTT acted on six warrants last year and 10 in 2015. These warrants are high-risk search and seizure operations. The team receives One particular project seized $75,000 from multiple building property search warrants. The way it works is, if a drug team does an investigation and they find enough evidence for a search warrant, then it gets handed over to the RSTT, and they act on it.

Goertzen said that each member of the team has grown the few years the RSTT has existed.

"It's been absolutely phenomenal," he said.

The RSTT is made up of nine members of the Winkler, Morden, and Altona police services.