The Northeast Merrimack Valley Special Operations Unit was established in 1995. The unit is made up of trained personnel with specific skills in the areas of marksmanship, tactical response and containment, deployment of chemical and less lethal munitions and hostage negotiations.
The team is multi-jurisdictional comprising of the towns of Amesbury, Salisbury, West Newbury, Newbury, Newburyport, and Merrimac. The Northeast Merrimack Valley Special Operations Unit’s mission is to protect and serve the citizens of this area by minimizing danger to the public while maximizing the safety of the public and police personnel.
The S.O.U. team will at times face situations which involves a greater potential for criminal violence, which places extra demands on departmental manpower and resources. The S.O.U. team encounters situations such as; barricaded suspect, sniper incident, hostage taking and incidents that pose extreme danger to officers and the public. The S.O.U. team will serve high risk warrants where armed resistance is likely that may involve circumstances of increased danger to the officer and the public. Dignitary protection is another service that the S.O.U. performs to serve the public.
Our goals are to resolve situations and ciritical incidents utilizing special equipment and procedures and to provide support to other units of the respective departments belonging to the Special Operations Unit
Special Operations Unit