Back in late May two Valley Indy reporters were invited to watch Derby police officers during a use of force training exercise.
It was a learning experience.
We watched two officers who seemed to develop a sixth sense in chaos.
We watched one officer mistakenly “shoot” an innocent person at close range in a simulation.
Obviously, if a police officer is going to make a mistake, it’s better to make it in training than on the street.
“This training is important because you can only learn so much behind a desk,” Lt. Justin Stanko said. “It’s different when you’re out there, and you’re moving, and you’re under stress, but you have to make quick decisions applying what you learned.”
All Derby police officers went through the training on May 25.
Cops set up elaborate scenarios using the old St. Michael’s School on Route 34. It’s a large building with lots of classrooms, stairwells, nooks, crannies — even an alley or two outside.
The space gave them the room to set up a number of different situations — an active shooter, a motor vehicle stop with a passenger legally “open carrying” a handgun, a seemingly routine assistance call that goes sideways, and a scenario involving a person having a psychiatric crisis.
The officers had to make quick decisions, to say the least. It was like giving someone a half-second to solve a riddle where guessing wrong gets someone killed.
‘ACTIVE SHOOTER’
The bystanders, bad guys, car passengers, witnesses and everybody else not a cop in the scenarios were played by Shelton High School students.
We watched one scenario that played out over three floors of the building.
Lt. Stanko explained how it would work:
“The two officers will be responding to a fight between an irate parent and an employee at a (social service agency) on Elizabeth Street,” Stanko said. “They’ll be told the first room is a secretary’s office, and it will be live from there.”
As soon as the scenario started, screaming filled the hallways of the building.
Two Derby cops entered a secretary’s office, where a distraught woman screamed “he took by boss. Mr. Smith. He want that way.” The woman couldn’t provide anymore info.
Officers entered a second room. More screaming. “He went up the stairs. He went that way!” a woman yelled.
Then — gunshots (blanks), from somewhere on an upper floor.
The two officers, guns already drawn, made a long trip up a stairwell.
Here’s a video clip from the first half of the scenario:
Once at the top of the stairs, two men could be heard screaming at each other — and there was a long trail of blood leading across a large room toward yet another room.
Officers made their way to that final room, where they were confronted with this:
Two men — one with a gun, one with a knife. Both screaming at each other.
Here’s what the second part of the scenario was like:
The final part of the scenario — two guys with weapons screaming at each other, one bleeding from his side — was a mind melter.
Through the screaming, it’s revealed the guy with the gun — the “active shooter” — is actually a victim, and the guy with the knife is the aggressor.
It was incredibly confusing for an observer to sort out. A Valley Indy reporter observing the incident didn’t realize one of the men had a gun until the scenario ended.
And not every officer got it right, either.
One cop “shot” the man with the gun after the man twice screamed “get out.”
Stanko explained the situation is tough. First, Officers must methodically “check corners” as they go up two flights of stairs after initially hearing gunfire.
Then the scenario changes at the top of the stairs when they hear the threatening screams. At that point the officers have to quickly move to the threat, Stanko said.
“It’s a difficult scenario. The person with the knife is actually an irate parent who stabbed an employee, and the employee has a gun,” Stanko said. “When (the officers) get there they need to calm down enough to listen to what is going on. The gun is down, so technically it is not a threat.”
Yet other cops, such as Officer Justin Walker, featured in the above video, were able to safely navigate the chaotic waters. Walker has been a police officer for five years.
During his turn, he used a Taser on the man who would not drop the knife.
“Obviously the main emphasis is the gun. That’s the biggest factor,” Walker said after it was over. “That’s why we had our guns out. It was still a big threat even though it turned out he was a victim defending himself. He could have still pointed it at us and killed us within a matter of a second.”
While Walker’s partner covered the man with the gun, Walker was able to listen to what the men were saying and determined the man with the knife was the “bad guy.”
“You just try to slow down everything in your head and process it the best you can,” Walker said.
‘ROUTINE’
Derby cops encountered another unpredictable scenario in the building’s basement.
Officers were told they were responding to assist a marshal evicting a tenant from an apartment.
“In this scenario the officer has to make decisions very quickly,” Stanko said. “It’s an in-your-face thing.”
In the scenario, an officer is confronted with a person coming at him or her — sometimes with a weapon, sometimes without.
The video below features Officer David Iacuone.
Iacuone was robot-like in his ability to quickly and successfully navigate each scenario. At one point his gun jammed while a person approached, meaning to do him harm. He calmly dealt with the situation.
The scenario was meant to make him think — at one point the Shelton student acting as the aggressor raised an item, but it was a cell phone, not a weapon. Iacuone didn’t shoot.
In addition, Iacuone had two Valley Indy reporters filming the whole thing.
“It was stressful, especially since I had someone coming at me with a weapon the first few times,” Iacuone said. “Then you have somebody coming at you without one. You have to think quick.”
REPORTER TRIES
Valley Indy reporter Ethan Fry participated on one scenario.
In the scenario, he was sent to respond to a report of graffiti on the Derby Greenway, a walking trail.
Fry finds a list of “cops to kill” someone left on the wall, then hears several men approaching and making threats to harm him.
The scenario, Fry points out, is one of the many reasons he’s not a police officer.
