As the Sheriff of Alameda County, I would like to introduce you to Urban Shield 2008. With financial support from the Bay Area Super Urban Area Security Initiative (SUASI), and the generous contribution from our Title Sponsor, BAE Corporation, this year’s training exercise will be even more challenging than last year. This rewarding event will improve our regional disaster response capabilities as well as our readiness to deal with many types of large scale incidents.

Urban Shield 2008 will challenge the skills and determination of the competing teams by testing their tactical skills in a series of real life scenarios. We have chosen specific locations that replicate identified problem areas and Tier 1 Critical Infrastructure sites within the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

Each participating tactical team will be provided with state of the art technology and weaponry. The teams will be challenged to successfully complete a multitude of scenarios and will be provided an opportunity to use their issued equipment under simulated real-world conditions. Our goal is to assess overall tactical skills while testing emergency equipment which we currently utilize to execute our law enforcement mission.

It is critically important that we train together and expand regional collaboration, testing our abilities over a broad spectrum of disciplines and incident scenes. The more we work together and identify areas for improvement, the better prepared we are to serve our communities.

Please join us in this challenging and rewarding effort. The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office is proud to host this unique training exercise again this year.

Gregory J. Ahern, Sheriff
Alameda County