ROUND ROCK, Texas – October 8, 2023 – The Texas Tactical Police Officers Association recently completed its annual SWAT competition, title sponsored this year by Sons of Liberty Gun Works. Thirty-six teams competed this year, with nine out-of-state teams and collegiate marksmanship teams entering. Past recent years have included international competitors as well. The competition was held over four days, and teams ran in eight separate events.
Friday & Saturday of the competition included a vendor show, with 5.11 Tactical, Cobalt Kinetics, Point Blank Enterprises, Safariland Systems, and Triarc Systems helping the competition as Platinum sponsors.
TTPOA President Dan Calosanto applauded Lubbock SWAT for their win – ” This was a record number of entries for us with 36 teams, and Lubbock PD deserves congratulations.”
Kolton Pirkle, member of Lubbock SWAT and sniper for the winning team, had high praise for the event. “This year’s TTPOA SWAT Competition was great. You could immediately see that the TTPOA Staff and hosting agency put in a ton of work to make the competition flow. The events were challenging and placed a large emphasis on understanding the mission, team communication during the mission, and executing the plan as a team. There was a high value placed on accuracy and accountability with high round counts and penalties for every miss or procedural violation. They provided teams with opportunities for strategy and creativity to think outside the box on how to get to the finish line. Our team has competed with TTPOA since 2012 and the event seems to get better each year. We believe that this year’s event was up there with the best. This competition definitely pushes us to train hard and get better as a team each year as well. If you are on the fence as a department or as a business looking for exposure in the tactical world, this is the event to get into. We are already looking forward to next year’s competition.”
Andy Adkins, TTPOA Vendor Coordinator, had specific praise for the vendors and sponsors at the competition. “This year was another phenomenal year of support from our beloved sponsors and vendors at the Competition. There’s no way that we could accomplish our mission of networking and providing training to officers from around the country without the support of our vendors and I must acknowledge their contribution.
Our Competition vendor show is smaller in scale than our annual conference, but still packs a serious punch when it comes to the exhibition of dynamic products designed to make the lives of our officers better, safer, and more effective.
This past year at our Conference, we hosted 200 vendors, who brought their ‘A’ game to be sure. We saw an incredible display of innovative products and I encourage anyone who is toying with the idea of attending as a student or as a vendor to find a way to get to our conference in April!”
The TTPOA will celebrate its 40th year anniversary in 2024, and the annual Conference, Training Symposium, and Vendor Show will be held April 24-28 at the Kalahari Resort in Round Rock, Texas. If you have interest in attending, please visit our website at www.ttpoa.org; prospective vendors can contact Andy Adkins at andy.adkins@ttpoa.org.
