Brookhaven Police and the North Metro SWAT Team practiced drills at the old State Vital Records Office building near Skyland Park on July 11.
The North Metro SWAT team is made up of officers from the Brookhaven, Dunwoody, Sandy Springs and Johns Creek police departments.
Cpl. Patrick Di Cicco of the Brookhaven Police Department said the police department along with North Metro SWAT and North Fulton SWAT were drilling on emergency entry training exercises and how to properly use explosives on doorways to gain entry.
The drills included extracting hostages, portrayed for the exercises by three Brookhaven Explorers: Will Asher, 17, who attends Paideia School, and Nikol Diaz, 17, and Sean Rector, 17, both of Cross Keys High School.
The building is set to be torn down in the near future as part of a land sale between DeKalb Schools and the city of Brookhaven to construct a new elementary school and new Skyland Park. The school is set to be built on the old Skyland Park site and the new Skyland Park is being built on the old vitals building site.
Construction on the new park is slated to begin July 18 and plans are for it to open in January 2018.
Construction of the school will begin in October and will open for the 2019-2020 school year.
Evelyn Andrews contributed.
