A special FBI agent Tai, in the Bureau’s San Juan, Puerto Rico office, is believed to be the first Black woman to be chosen for SWAT team training. The newly chosen agent, will be undergoing New Operator Training School (NOTS), a 10-week course that prepares selectees for SWAT field operations, the FBI. If she passes, she will become a probationary member of San Juan Division’s SWAT team — one of the busiest in the nation, the FBI said in a news release. Despite the pressure to successfully become the first Black woman on a SWAT team, Tai’s head remains focused on the first challenge: passing NOTS. The course is aimed at improving an agent’s firearm skills, body movement, and critical thinking during stressful situations. “I’m one of those people where I have a task at hand and I just focus on that task,” she said in the release. “I don’t really think about people looking at me.”
“Hopefully somebody will see that I was able to do it,” Tai said. “I’m not the biggest person. I’m not as strong as some of these guys. But as long as you have perseverance — because it does get really tough — you push through it and keep going.”
Tai’s upbringing in a neighborhood outside Tampa, Florida, had an impact on her path in law enforcement. Drugs and crime were constant in her community. One day, while two U.S. Marshal deputies served a warrant in the area, she noticed one was a Black woman. Tai approached her, the first Black woman she’d ever seen with a badge, and was handed a business card.
That moment stuck with her.
Tai stayed the course and studied criminal justice at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach. She earned a scholarship to attend the historically Black university and set her eyes on becoming an officer.
Tai’s ROTC instructor at Bethune-Cookman, Maj. Earl Fillmore, Jr., said he isn’t surprised that his former cadet is making big strides at the FBI. He saw her leadership abilities as a student, and then as an Army reserve officer.
“The big thing about her is her mental fortitude,” said Maj. Fillmore, director of military affairs at Bethune-Cookman. “She’s really resilient. She’s got all the characteristics you would want in a good FBI agent and also the characteristics you want in an Army officer.”
