SWAT teams drill at future college site

In a fiery last hurrah, some abandoned buildings off 15th Street and Monrovia Avenue were used for SWAT team training this week.

They will be demolished to make way for a new Coastline Community College campus in 2012.

Some residents in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa likely heard thuds, shouts and bangs coming from the campus to-be Wednesday afternoon as Newport Beach SWAT team officers joined others from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, and Tustin and Irvine police departments.

SWAT team training sometimes takes place in a “breach house,” a set constructed solely for training.

School district officials said the site gave officers a chance to train in real buildings with an unfamiliar layout.

The suggestion for teaming up with police was born in the Coast Community College District’s Land Development Committee, officials said.

— Joseph Serna