{"id":127412,"date":"2026-01-10T01:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T01:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/127412\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T01:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T01:12:13","slug":"to-prepare-for-hostile-territory-the-military-trained-on-sf-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/127412\/","title":{"rendered":"To prepare for hostile territory, the military trained on SF streets"},"content":{"rendered":"

For three days in early December, dozens of San Francisco sheriff\u2019s deputies crisscrossed the city, hunting a group of foreign military fugitives by following any breadcrumbs they had left behind.<\/p>\n

It was dubbed Exercise Sourdough. Sadly, no bread was broken in the mock operation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A month before U.S. military forces kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro \u2014 and two months after San Francisco was nearly inundated by federal immigration officials<\/a> \u2014 the city was the staging ground for the Department of Defense\u2019s largest urban evasion operation (opens in new tab)<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TwoU.S. airmen are \u201carrested\u201d during the exercise. | Source: Courtesy 60th Air Mobility Wing<\/p>\n

The war game (opens in new tab)<\/a>, which ended Dec. 11, involved 150 military and civilian law enforcement personnel, including members of the Coast Guard and sheriff\u2019s deputies. San Francisco played the part of a foreign city where Air Force personnel tried to avoid capture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evading participants navigated the city for up to 36 hours with limited resources, facing realistic opposition forces and making time-sensitive decisions,\u201d said the U.S. Air Force, which has run similar exercises for 11 years.<\/p>\n

The operation took place after the Air Force requested help from local law enforcement for realistic training of military personnel, many of whom will be posted at U.S. embassies. The participants were familiarized with San Francisco, then dropped across the city. They were given orders on where to move as sheriff\u2019s deputies searched for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ASWAT officers simulate a hostage situation at the Hall of Justice. | Source: Courtesy 60th Air Mobility Wing<\/p>\n

\u201cAir Force personnel were dropped off along the San Francisco waterfront and had to move across the city, find overnight shelter, and reach a designated location without being detected \u2014 simulating movement through a hostile foreign environment,\u201d a sheriff\u2019s spokesperson said. \u201cFor our deputies, this served as fugitive-recovery training.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

From headquarters at the sheriff\u2019s office, deputies tracked their prey with the help of headshots of each individual \u2014 once captured, that person\u2019s face was crossed out \u2014 and digital maps of their potential locations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the sheriff\u2019s mothballed jail facilities in the Hall of Justice was used to stage a hostage scenario with everything from fake trip wires to tear gas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 11 teams that spread across the city practiced evasion skills before being rescued by aircraft, boats, and vehicles. Several participants had simulated injuries and were \u201ctreated\u201d as part of the exercise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AU.S. Air Force Sgt. Juan Castaneda-Lopez briefs exercise participants. | Source: Courtesy 60th Air Mobility Wing<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the sheriff\u2019s office said the operation was designed to have as little impact as possible on local residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No federal immigration officials took part in the exercise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For three days in early December, dozens of San Francisco sheriff\u2019s deputies crisscrossed the city, hunting a group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[734,101,103,102,104,106,105,5264,36094],"class_list":["post-127412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-law-enforcement","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sheriffs-department","tag-trump-vs-california"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}