Lt. Matthew Christensen, commander of Red River Valley SWAT
FARGO (KFGO) – Earlier this year, the Red River Valley SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team’s longest-serving commander handed leadership of the unit over to the man he’d been readying for the role since the day he first took command, almost seven and a half years earlier.
Fargo Police Captain Bill Ahlfeldt served as commander of Red River Valley SWAT from September of 2015 until January of this year, when FPD Lieutenant Matthew Christensen, who was previously the assistant commander, assumed the role, and West Fargo Police Sergeant Craig Danielson took over the #2 spot. Ahlfeldt had been a member of the SWAT team since 2003, making him the longest serving member of Red River Valley SWAT as well.
Under Ahlfeldt’s command, Red River Valley SWAT “revolutionized team training by implementing the values of the Fargo Police Department,” in addition to expanding training opportunities, purchased new gear like helmets and vests, and added to the equipment arsenal with the purchase of the up-armored skid steer called the Rook, according to a release from the FPD.
Christensen says he’ll continue to further develop the training program, with an added focus on learning and adopting the best practices of the highest quality teams around the country. The gravity and responsibility of his new role isn’t lost on him.
“When I was new on the team and I was one of the guys who was in the front of the stack going into the place – we’d get called out, I’d get excited,” Christensen said. “And now when we get called out, I get nervous, because I recognize that all of these guys’ well-being is on me, and I gotta make sure that I can send them home to their family safely. I owe it to all those people that I’m making the right decisions in the truck, to make sure that we all come home together, recognizing that this is a risky thing that we do and it can be dangerous but making sure that we’re doing things the right way for the right reasons and keeping everybody safe – including the guys on the team, the officers that are on the call, the citizens that we’re dealing with, the people that we’re going to arrest.”
Ahlfeldt says the number of call-outs SWAT gets can fluctuate quite a bit from year-to-year. In 2022 Red River Valley SWAT got 26 call-outs for service, and in 2023 so far the team has had 19, Christensen said.
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