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Prosecutors spend a day in police shoes
Deputy DAs train on shoot/don't shoot
A group of young prosecutors armed with bullet-proof vests and silver-plated handguns took turns Monday blasting away at a pair of gunmen who suddenly opened fire during a traffic stop.
On videotape that is. With guns that fired beams of light at a firearms training simulator.
The shoot/don’t shoot exercise was part of day-long police training that 22 deputy district attorneys underwent at the Colorado Springs Police Academy on what for many people was a Columbus Day court holiday.
The program – offered for the first time at the Academy – was aimed at giving prosecutors a sense of what a police officer’s life is like in those moments that later become the subject of courtroom hearings.
“It gave them a better understanding of what they (police) do and the stress they were under,” said Jim Bentley, a former Colorado Springs police officer turned prosecutor who helped stage the training.
The nine hours of training count toward 15 hours of police ride-alongs that deputy prosecutors must complete before they can graduate from handling misdemeanors in county court to trying felonies in district court. They also have to complete 15 county court trials and handle one case on appeal.
So for a day, prosecutors like Andy Vaughan, who joined the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s office in September 2009, traded their business suits and boxes of court files for tight-fitting vest protectors and simulated handguns.
“It’s bulky and uncomfortable,” Vaughan said of the holster, his right hand resting on the gun handle. “The vest isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It makes me feel safe.”
In addition to lectures, the prosecutors took turns on a firearms simulator that posed various situations where they had to decide in a split-second whether to use deadly force.
In one scenario, a driver they tried to pull over refuses to stop until he gets home. The unarmed but vocal driver is soon joined by a group of stick- and bat-wielding men who emerge from a garage.
Is it OK to shoot the driver who makes verbal threats as he advances with the other men?
“You’re the DA. Is that a good shoot?” asked police trainer Mike Singels.
Probably not if the driver is the last man standing, Singels said. But then he demonstrated how easy it would be for the driver to grab control of the gun and turn it on the prosecutor.
After prosecutor Bryan Gogarty finished his turn, he joked, “Can we install this in our house?”
Gogarty said the exercise was useful.
“No matter how many cases you deal with it’s never quite the same as when you’re actually in a similar position, when you can experience what the officer experiences.”
For video on this story, visit “The Sidebar” blog at gazette.com.
