STOCKTON, Calif. — In a giant warehouse complex off East 8 Mile Road in Stockton, San Joaquin County Sheriff's deputies are training for a day they hope will never happen. That day is when an active shooter suddenly opens fire at a high school.
"With reports of shots fired, with a school resource officer on site, however, they have not heard from the school officer nor do they know where this officer is," says Joe Petrino, captain of the Professional Standards Division for the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office.
He gives deputies the little information that is known for the scenario before they enter the makeshift school grounds.
Sheriff's office cadets are used as actors as the two deputies undergoing the training then try to make their way towards the "shooter."
"They're in the back, in the far back over there," an actor frantically yells up close to the deputies.
Trainers say the idea is simple: to create as much realistic stress and increased heart rate for deputies as possible.
"Ultimately, we hope to inoculate the peace officers, the deputy sheriffs, as much as we can to maintain a fundamental ability, which is to think," says Petrino.
Petrino says the active shooter training has gone on for many years. Each deputy is trained for it.
According to the nonprofit research group Gun Violence Archive, which categorizes a mass shooting as four or more people killed or injured, so far in the U.S. this year there have been 80 mass shootings.
That's where the training comes in. Deputies who undergo it say it gives them as realistic experience to an active shooter situation as possible.
"That's the whole purpose of this, is to try and imitate as much as possible the types of stressors that our deputies are going to be facing when they encounter these types of situations," says Sgt. Brenton Souza.
"Every situation is different. There's different ways a scenario can play out. Getting runs through it and the training obviously makes us proficient at our job," said San Joaquin County Sheriff's Deputy Jared Perkins.
The sheriff's office says it wanted to give the public an up close look at active shooter training by inviting the media.
The scenario took place in Stockton at "C-Q-B City" which is a law enforcement training center as well as an indoor airsoft arena.
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