A Laser ‘Game’ Tests the Police : Lifelike video tests officers by forcing them to make instant decisions in shoot-to-kill situations. Their ‘shots’ are recorded and their presence of mind is measured.

At first look, it appears to be the latest in arcade games.

“If you find you’re in a situation where you have to stop a threat, you need to keep firing until you stop that threat,” Sheila Garberich instructs the group waiting to play.

The first player steps up, about 15 feet from the 8-foot-by-10-foot silver screen.

Garberich asks for a revolver and hands him a Smith & Wesson. The room goes dark and the “game” begins.

“You and your partner are serving a warrant on a dangerous felon,” a computer voice says. On a screen, a door is opened and the player and his video partner rush in. An ominous, bearded, burly man is seated in a chair. He jumps up. He has a shotgun. He aims.

Two shots are heard. The action freezes.

The computer flashes a message on the screen: “Good Judgment.”

Threat Ended

John McCarley, a Los Angeles Police Department detective with the Wilshire Division, has stopped the threat.

It is a Friday morning and McCarley and a group of veteran officers have just started a skills-sharpening course with the department’s latest training tool--the Firearms Training System. Called FATS for short, the $40,000 simulator is an electronic version of the FBI’s famous “Hogan’s Alley.”

Garberich, a Los Angeles police officer and tactics instructor, lets the scene roll again--a split second after McCarley hit the suspect, a shotgun blast explodes.

“That’s what would have happened if you didn’t fire,” she says.

A laser disc programmed with 40 different scenarios flashes the incidents on a screen and officers must decide when and if they should fire. The Smith & Wesson is actually a laser-equipped gun that allows the computer system to record an officer’s reaction time and hits and misses. It also marks the bullet holes on the suspect.

And although it may seem as if FATS is nothing but a child’s toy, that could not be further from the truth.

“You think it’s a video game until you’re in it,” said Sgt. Terry Pratt, the officer supervising FATS training at the Los Angeles Police Academy since the system was purchased by the city three months ago.

Mainly for Recruits

FATS is primarily used to train officer recruits at the academy. It is an integral part of their education at the academy and one of several tactical training tools, Pratt said. Behind the building housing FATS is a shooting range where live ammunition is fired.

Before FATS, the academy tested officer gun use with two human evaluators--instead of a computer--who observed trainees firing wax bullets at a crime scenario shown by a movie projector.

The department is one of 200 law enforcement agencies--including the FBI and the San Diego, San Francisco, Philadelphia and New York City police departments--around the nation using the system, built by Georgia-based Firearms Training Systems Inc.

As the officers or recruits go through FATS training exercises, they must explain their decision to draw and fire, or not to.

“It starts their thinking. We want to hear what is going on in their minds,” Pratt said.

The veteran officers and recruits who are now required to train with FATS say that it is the most realistic training they receive and that they take it very seriously; the lessons learned could one day save their lives.

In 1987, there were 138 incidents in which Los Angeles Police Department officers had to fire their weapons, according to police officials. There were a total of 64 hits. One officer was shot dead in 1987 and one so far this year.

FATS not only tests how accurately and quickly an officer fires, but it also throws out scenarios in which the computer and tactics instructor can see whether an officer acts with restraint.

In one scenario, shots are heard in a store being robbed. One man runs out and then another man--carrying a gun--emerges. Several officers fired immediately--without ordering the man to stop. When Garberich allowed the laser disc to show the rest of the scene, it turned out that the man they shot was the store manager chasing the thief.

“It’s fairly realistic. When you go up before the screen, you feel as if you’re about to face a real problem and when it (the computer scenario) goes down, your palms get sweaty and your heart starts beating fast,” said Central Traffic District Officer Roger Wilson.