Roy Exum
Once upon a time I had the opportunity to land a Boeing 747. I promptly killed myself and over 500 screaming men, women and children. When I stepped out of the simulator I laughed and joked with a couple of Delta pilots who had tried to tell me how to do it. Yesterday I would have killed some more people but I was too sobered to try. The simulator that will be the topic today at the AEGIS Law Enforcement Foundation luncheon scared the beejesus out of me.
Sure, it is just a video that is shown on a wide screen but you have a pistol in your hand that is so true-to-life it recoils.
What is horrifying is that the scenes that are presented make an officer think to such a heightened degree that instructor Scott Barker believes more than 30 minutes is a waste because you are so emotionally drained. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even in the bloodiest movies.
The Taser simulator that was on display at the Chattanoogan hotel on Monday is perhaps the finest teaching tool in law enforcement today. It can present over 500 scenarios and, with the gun in your hand, you have milliseconds to decide whether you shoot or don’t shoot. “It’s one thing to shoot 50 rounds at a firing range,” said Gino Bennett, a member of Jim Hammond’s command staff at the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department, “but this makes you think. Thinking is what saves lives.”
Does it ever. After I watched two or three scenarios it really made me think. We – our community – needed this machine yesterday. It costs right at $65,000 but it is immediately apparent it is worth far more than that. “If a police officer today shoots somebody, I can almost guarantee the officer and his department will be sued. That’s the way it is today,” said Barker, who served in the FBI for 24 years and was a member of the agency’s elite Hostage Rescue Team.
Curiously, the threat of a lawsuit, and a drawn-out legal tussle that will last four or five years, has little to do with the drastic need for the Taser-built simulator. Please, put a price on the life of a police officer; what is that worth? Any taxpayer can see that if we put our law-enforcement heroes in a masterfully-simulated session, it could and will save that officer’s life.
Scott Barker represents Ti Training, and he can present each case like Ed Sullivan introduced the Beatles. “It’s 11:30 at night and you have a report of a prowler in a warehouse,” he said as he handed out a flashlight to his student. The screen is black, illuminated only by the flashlight beam, when suddenly it catches movement on the left of the screen and shines on a guy behind a workbench.
The suspect, surly and arrogant, says he works in the building, “and get that (expletive) light out of my face. “ His right hand is hidden behind a box and the officer yells, “Let me see your hand … both hands … right now!”
One scene has him come out with a semi-automatic, firing as the officers fire back. The bad guy gets shot and falls to the floor. One officer lowers his gun, only to have the wounded crook fire off three more rounds from the floor. “You just got killed,” Barker told a wide-eyed student.
But wait, the operator of the simulator can show the exact same scenario with the same arrogant prowler jerking a harmless wrench from behind the box. Or a long knife or even an empty hand. Do you shoot or not shoot? And any one of us have about two seconds to make that decision. (Go ahead, just say tick-tick … get the picture?)
Bennett, one of Jim Hammond’s best, bragged that he almost got through a simulator perfectly a couple of years ago until the last scene. There was a tall, ornery man standing on a porch, threatening to come out of the simulator and tear Gino’s head off but with his hand hidden behind his back. “There was a beat-up car to the right of where the guy was approaching but it appeared there was no one in it. That’s when the tall guy yelled, ‘Sic him Rufus’ and this imaginary dog absolutely chewed me up,” Bennett laughed. “That won’t happen to me again.
“But the whole exercise is to teach you that this can really happen. The bad part,” the smile leaving his face, “is that the scenes you are seeing really do happen every day across America.”
They have a scene where the police officer has just pulled over a truck with no license tag. A burly Hispanic man rolls down the window, shouting in Spanish. He gets madder and madder, his stream of Spanish at a roar. Suddenly he twists to grab for something beside him on the seat.
In the twinkling of an eye that officer has to pull his gun out of the holster and take a stance but how fast is the angry driver? What did he grab that is out of the officer’s line of sight? A Diet Coke? A Model 43 Glock? A hand grenade? The police officer will know in less than two seconds. Does he shoot or not shoot?
Equally important, was the officer properly trained to prevent a tragedy? Remember Julie Jacks, the wonderful Chattanooga police officer who was overpowered and killed with her service weapon? The simulator teaches what not to do, as well.
Or how about the Ferguson disaster, where Michael Brown was fatally shot by Officer Darin Wilson? It is believed Brown’s body samples were found on Wilson’s cruiser but there were three different riots, 212 people arrested and untold millions in damages, not to mention racial allegations that the entire country is still struggling with.
I heartily believe the Taser simulator might keep something like that, or far worse, from actually happening here. Really. The Ferguson police released footage of Brown robbing a store just before, which legal eagles said fouled the grand jury investigation, this with traces of tear gas still in the air. What a train wreck. Nobody, black or white, wants anything like that to happen anywhere.
Tom Edd Wilson, who oversees the AEGIS Foundation, is now accepting private donations for the simulator and I will guarantee if any of our business leaders could “really” see the simulator like I did yesterday, Tom Edd could raise the whole amount in less than a day. Think about that …
They will show a video at today’s lunch but there is no way it will simulate watching one of the raw scenarios, where obscenities are hurled every other word, police radio is crackling in your ears and somebody is screaming. Do you know how fast a maniac with a knife can move? We put our most valuable people in harm’s way all the time so we won’t ever be in harm’s way. The simulator is an absolute must.
You’ve got two seconds … do you shoot or not shoot?
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If Sheriff Hammond’s plea for the simulator falls short, I can come up with a lot of cash if I can borrow one and sell my friends VIP tickets so they can dance with the thing for 30 minutes. I wish every legal-carry permit holder could get a taste of it, too.
My dream is to build a Chattanooga-Hamilton County Firearms Safety Center where our various law enforcement groups could use it for out-of-the-weather training and allow the public to buy memberships, attend safety classes and practice, practice, practice -- which is the key to everything.
But wouldn’t it be cool to set up the simulator where two good friends, each paying $50 for the same 30 minutes, could pretend they were partners in a squad car and get their nerves jangled like mine were yesterday? I will tell you one great truth those two guys will discover – they will never look at a police officer again that they don’t thank their lucky stars for the service these men and women provide around the clock.
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After the Ferguson riots, a reader sent me a 20-second video clip purportedly taken by a CNN cameraman of a police officer shouting at a group of protesters, “Bring it! Bring it, you ****ing animals! Bring it!” When fellow officers rushed in, it was learned the officer had a complete mental breakdown from the horrible stress and tension. Maybe if he had been prepared, it never would have happened.
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Scott Barker, the instructor, was putting a school resource officer through the simulator when a scene showed four teenagers running down a hall, two of them armed. The resource officer never pulled his trigger when one of the kids started firing. With tears streaming down his face, the school resource officer said, “I could never shoot a kid.” He resigned the next day. “I am sad about that,” said Barker, “but I want to know if he can’t shoot in a simulator before he might have to face the real thing.”
royexum@aol.com