A mile in
our shoes
Union County community leaders
got a taste of the challenges of
law enforcement with Firearms
Training Simulator
Local 144 Past-President Sergeant Ernest Schmidt led the firearms training simulator with Union County community leaders.
When the gunman rounded the corner of a stairwell, a pastor was
armed and ready for him.
The clergyman was just one of a group of civilians who took part
in “shoot or don’t shoot” training using a video game-esque simulator at Union County’s John H. Stamler Police Academy last week.
A turn on the county’s Firearms Training Simulator, which is usually reserved for police recruits, was offered to community leaders
to “put them in an officer’s” shoes, according to acting Union
County Prosecutor Grace Park, who conceived the idea.
Running the show was county range-master and Berkeley
Heights Local 144 Past-President Sergeant Ernest Schmidt who
explained the process of the simulator to the attendees and chose
scenarios that reflect the challenges officers face when confronted
with unpredictable situations.
“I chose scenarios that were difficult, and they chose to shoot and
not shoot,” Schmidt explained. “There’s some flaws to it because
they haven’t been trained in use of force and don’t have a belt with
other options like a baton or pepper spray – it’s a gun or nothing, so
we had to chose the scenarios carefully.”
Schmidt found the encounter very interesting to watch and the
participants very open-minded.
“Based on what went on in Fergusson, I thought they’d come in
saying here’s the cops trying to say ‘see here’s how hard it is,’” he
related. “But it was just a good back and forth for a discussion that
ended with them saying ‘I see how difficult that might be for an officer.’”
Park explained the point of the day was to have community leaders “really experience firsthand what happens. The judgement calls
that need to be made in a shoot or don’t shoot scenario,” she said.
“Talking to the community leaders after really reflected how important it is to be transparent in this way because they really got it. They
understand the issues the officers have, how hard it is to be an
officer, and how hard it is to make those judgement calls.”
Before they began, Union County Prosecutor’s Office Special
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Prosecutions Unit Supervisor John Esmerado provided a tutorial on
the legal parameters governing use of force, explaining that an
officer must be fearful for his or her own life and that the response
in force must be proportional and reasonable.
“If someone raises a fist to you, the officer can’t take a gun out,”
Esmerado said. “If they raise a beer glass, the officer can’t take a gun
out. But if they go and break the beer glass, now they have weapon.
In a few seconds, a situation can go from non-deadly to deadly as
things escalate when a subject gets increasingly agitated.”
One-by-one, participants took turns playing officer and making
calls as to whether to pull the trigger on a real (but disarmed) gun
attached to the simulator, which responds to pulls of the trigger and
also voice commands.
The scenarios are designed to be tricky and to force quick judgement calls from those holding the gun - the subjects go from noncombative to combative and take out unclear items from their
waistbands – and the simulations change each time they’re played.
In one scenario, a suspicious man hidden behind a column turns
out to be an employee. Another time, he jumps out from the column