School shooting in progress!
A bell is ringing, kids are scrambling and screaming.
Kirk Kruze, gun drawn and adrenaline on overload, runs down the steps, past the sprawled bodies of two students lying in pools of blood. "One down!" he yells. "Two down!"
He comes across another student kneeling on the floor, wounded, hands up, pleading with an unseen assailant. Suddenly a burst of automatic fire cuts the boy down.
Then the shooter emerges from a doorway -- a skinny girl with an AK-47. She turns it on Mr. Kruze, who shouts for her to drop it and then shoots her dead.
Game over.
Except this really wasn't a game. It was an interactive police training system called Milo, set up yesterday at the Pittsburgh Technical Institute to drum up interest in the Citizen Police Academy of Allegheny County.
The idea is to show what police work is like.
Mr. Kruze, 38, of Oakdale, already knew, considering that he's a former Marine officer who saw duty in Desert Storm.
But this was different from any training he'd ever been through.
"When that AK goes off," he said, "that gets your heart going."
"You can't win this one," said Jim Lauria, Oakdale's public safety officer and the instructor for the day. "There are some situations where you know you can't win. And you accept that."
The use-of-force system and a DUI simulator that delays reaction time to show what it's like to drive under the influence were on display at the institute's North Fayette campus, mostly for the media to try out in advance of the police academy course that starts Feb. 13.
The academy, conducted at the campus by state police, will accept 25 residents for the 10 weeks of classes held on Tuesday nights.
Citizen academies are held around the country to introduce the average person to the world of law enforcement and forge a better understanding between cops and the people they protect.
One of the most popular features are "judgmental trainers" like Milo, which allow a student to play cop and wade into a violent encounter armed with gun, baton, mace and taser. It's kind of like the TV show "Cops," except you're part of it.
Scenarios play out on a video screen and the operator of the computer system can respond to your actions, so that characters on screen react to what you do.
If you yell "Drop the gun!" the guy on the screen might drop his gun. Or he might pretend to drop it and then suddenly shoot you. Or maybe he'll grab a hostage and kill her. You never know what's going to happen.
When Mr. Kruze went through the school scenario a second time, he still wasn't able to save the boy pleading for his life but he did manage to apprehend the shooter without killing her. And this time, he did it in the dark, using a flashlight mounted to his pistol that is one of Milo's innovations.
In a previous scenario, he and several media members also responded to a call at a dry cleaners.
This one also involved a shooter and lots of uncertainty.
When you arrive, your partner goes one way and you go the other. But neither of you can see what's happening. As you round a corner, you see a woman on the floor and a man standing behind her with a gun.
On Mr. Kruze's first time through, the man raised his gun and Mr. Kruze immediately shot him. It was a mistake, he realized, because he didn't give any commands.
On his second pass, Mr. Kruze yelled "Drop the gun, drop the gun!" The man slowly put down his gun and put his hands up, saying, "Take it easy."
But both times, Mr. Kruze survived.
Paul Martino, the KDKA television reporter, wasn't so fortunate. As he rounded the bend at the dry cleaners, the man shot him before he could fire. Earlier in the exercise, Mr. Martino had missed by a wide margin several pumpkins set up as targets.
"That's why I'm not in law enforcement," he said.
Mr. Lauria said the simulator is effective in training police because it is unpredictable, as street incidents usually are.
Even though it's all fake, the heart pounds and the hands shake. When it's over, no one's dead or hurt, but the whole thing can be replayed so a trainee can see what he did right and where he made mistakes.
"It seems like a game, but it allows you to make judgment calls," said Mr. Lauria. "It's very quick. That's the way it is in the street. These first responders are going into these situations blindfolded."
