Emergency Responders, Law Enforcement Agents Descend Upon Madeline Island For Training Exercise

Drill Was For Scenario Involving 'Armed Survivalists'

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An image of a helicopter heading towards a training exercise, tweeted by the Eau Claire County Sheriff's Department on Wednesday morning. 

Madeline Island was overrun by police, deputies, wardens, the state patrol, the FBI, firefighters and emergency response teams Wednesday in a training exercise.

Regional SWAT teams from Eau Claire, La Crosse and Superior; the National Park Service; the Coast Guard; the National Guard; the Department of Natural Resources; Wisconsin Emergency Management; and several police, sheriff and fire departments were involved in the drill to combat what Eau Claire County Sheriff Lt. Rodney Stearns called “armed survivalists.”

“This has gone back to way back in Posse Comitatus days back in the ’70s,” Sterns said. “This is people who don’t believe in government, don’t believe in law enforcement, don’t recognize law enforcement at all. (They) are self-contained and self-sufficient, battling laws that don’t pertain to them.”

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Stearns said Madeline Island is unique — as is the exercise.

“(It’s) never been done before,” he said. “I’ve done training missions that I’ve put teams together and we’ve trained by this manner. This one became complicated.”

Stearns said the public wouldn’t have even known they were there. Even the agencies involved weren’t told how the drill will go down: “Making it fair, if you will, for both sides,” said Stearns

The operation began at 9 a.m. and ended around 3 p.m. It included beach and ferry landings and even a parachute drop.