Ukraine-proven Senator joins Canada’s capital police

The Ottawa Police Service’s tactical unit has added a Roshel Senator armored vehicle fitted with a hydraulic assault ramp that can lift officers to second-floor windows and rooftops in seconds, giving Canada’s capital the same Canadian-built armored vehicle that Ukraine has used in large numbers on the battlefield. U.S. manufacturer Patriot3 announced that its LIBERATOR Elevated Tactics System had been installed on the unit’s new Senator, a version Roshel calls the Senator ERV.

The LIBERATOR is a single-ramp system mounted on top of the vehicle that rises to its maximum height in under 10 seconds, according to Patriot3, so that tactical officers can make an elevated entry into a building, intervene during a barricade situation or rescue people from upper floors without exposing themselves on ladders. The company says the wide ramp leaves the vehicle’s roof hatch or turret accessible, and that the whole system can be removed in 10 to 15 minutes, which lets the police use the Senator in its standard configuration when the ramp is not needed.

Roshel founder and CEO Roman Shimonov said the company was proud to support the Ottawa Police Service in protecting the national capital and stressed that the vehicle is made at home.

“Built in Canada, by Canadians, for those who protect Canadians,” said Roman Shimonov, CEO and founder of Roshel.

Roshel builds the Senator in Ontario on a Ford F-550 heavy-duty chassis and offers it in configurations ranging from police and security vehicles to military armored personnel carriers. The Senator became widely known after Canada began sending it to Ukraine as military aid in 2022, and Roshel delivered its 1,000th Senator to the Ukrainian armed forces at the end of 2023. Ukraine has since received more than 2,200 of the vehicles, and earlier this year Mexico chose the Senator after trials by its armed forces and National Guard.

Patriot3, based in Fredericksburg, Virginia, has supplied its LIBERATOR systems to police tactical teams in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, including SWAT units in San Francisco and Glendale, Arizona, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and New South Wales Police, where the ramp is typically mounted on Lenco BearCat armored vehicles. The Ottawa installation pairs it with a Canadian-made vehicle instead, giving the city’s tactical unit an armored platform that can both carry a team into a high-risk area and put officers directly at a building’s upper windows.

Elevated entry systems let tactical teams reach second-floor windows, balconies and rooftops while staying behind armor for most of the approach, an option police forces have used in barricaded-suspect and hostage situations where ground-floor doors are covered by an armed suspect.