Behind the Gun--and Under It as Well

The lessons begin when the lights go out: The gun is heavier than you think. It’s hard to concentrate, much less aim a pistol, when people scream or swing a crowbar at you. And choosing to pull the trigger isn’t easy, even when the target is just a flickering face on a video screen.

Tucked into a storeroom at the Huntington Beach Police Department, the ICAT simulator is an interactive video system that gives this city’s cops a pulse-pounding drill in the use of deadly force. But on a recent Thursday afternoon, a trio of Times reporters ran through the device’s re-creation of street stress and quick-draw decision-making.

The scenarios play mind games. Is the shadowy figure a burglar brandishing a handgun or a youngster with a plastic toy? Acting too quickly could lead to tragedy; hesitation might mean death. Here are the reporters’ firsthand accounts.

LEE ROMNEY:

My palms were sweating, muscles tensed, index finger wrapped tightly around the trigger. The warehouse owner had reported a burglary in progress, and I arrived to find the metal roll door to the business wide open.

When a heavyset man--panting and nervous--swung toward me with a shotgun flinging loosely from his grip, I started to squeeze the trigger. But with his erratic movement came a blubbering explanation: He was the owner, he said, checking out the suspicious sounds.

I spared him, but I shouldn’t have. Shooting him would have been justified--regardless of the grief it would have brought his family, or the psychological pain and lawsuits that would have overwhelmed my life for years to come.

My trainers, however, pointed out that it was wrong for me not to shoot a man who pointed a weapon at me. He could have been lying about who he was. And if he had been a bad guy, he would have blown me away before I had time to listen to his story.

That lesson learned, I stepped deeper into the warehouse, edgier and more determined than ever to protect myself. When the next employee--this one unarmed--tiptoed around a stack of merchandise, I fired. If my aim were better, I would have hit him.

My third call was a domestic-violence scenario, with a well-off couple screaming obscenities at one another, drinks in hand. When the husband stormed off into a nearby room, the wife exploded in panic. “He has a gun!”

Sure enough, the husband came charging back, raised his weapon and aimed at his wife. I was so wrapped up in the concept of self-preservation that I forgot my primary duty: serving and protecting. Instead of shooting before the man committed murder, I trained my weapon on him and waited for him to shoot his wife. Then I killed him.

That, my police trainers pointed out, would not have gone over too well with my supervisors, the troubled couple’s relatives or the media.

By the end, I was full of doubts about my performance. I replayed each scene in my mind that night as I lay on my sofa.

I should have pulled the trigger sooner. I should have waited for the unarmed employee to turn around. Should have, should have, should have.

THAO HUA:

Intellectually, I knew how to play the game and come out ahead.

There’s a few seconds between life and death, and my goal was to stay alive. See a bad guy with a gun, shoot. See a good guy without a gun, don’t shoot.

Easy enough.

Well, not quite when it came to the real thing, or virtually the real thing.

The police lieutenant handed me the gun, which weighed on my soul like a rock through a glass window on a quiet evening. It was the first time I had held a gun that wasn’t a toy.

In my hand, the gun felt eerily comfortable. But my nerves were shattered.

When my index finger pulled the trigger to test it, there was no kickback. I reminded myself that this was not a loaded gun, and you weren’t actually going to kill anyone. More important, no one was actually going to kill me.

But when it came time to shoot at the electronic crooks, there was no hesitation on my part. It seemed so real, and I began firing wildly because I became afraid of being shot if I gave someone the benefit of a doubt.

Assume the worst. Aim low, and if you’re going to shoot, shoot to kill. That’s what I was thinking--although I can’t say that’s what I was doing, since many of my shots were so far off target that they didn’t even register on the screen.

I wish I could say that in that dark storeroom I made all the right decisions when it came time to shoot or not to shoot. But that wasn’t the case when the lieutenant turned on the lights.

I had become someone trying to stay alive in a struggle where a clear line between right and wrong constantly shifts.

GEOFF BOUCHER

Getting killed three times in 20 minutes can make you a little edgy.

Maybe that’s why I missed the two clean shots I had at the armed rapist, giving him enough time to press his pistol to the temple of his intended victim. I had heard enough chuckles from the two veteran cops watching my blunders, so it was time for a shot they would talk about for weeks.

I took careful aim over the hostage’s shoulder and drew a bead on the bad guy, just like one of the tin cans my college roommate and I used to shoot off fences. But tin cans don’t move. The replay showed that my shot hit the hostage squarely between the eyes.

As the woman crumpled, the bad guy wheeled and shot twice--my fourth death of the day. But I was satisfied to see, at least, that my final shot hit my foe’s forehead, ending his miserable electronic life as well. I was less pleased to hear more laughing from the two cops. “If you weren’t dead,” one of them joked, “you’d have a lot of paperwork to fill out.”

The humor and my Dirty Harry approach to the final scenario did not obscure the weighty lessons I learned in the first three scenarios. I died once because I was not quick enough. Another time I misjudged who was the bad guy--it was a domestic dispute, and I kept my eye on the raving husband when, it turned out, the real threat was his weeping wife. The third time I was too jumpy to aim straight.

After each scenario, white circles popped up to indicate where shots landed. I was surprised both by how poor my aim was and by the number of shots I had fired.

In the past, I had wondered why officers in distress had fired half a dozen times instead of just once or twice. It seemed gratuitous to me, but now, after feeling the heat and panic generated by a mere mock gun battle, it was easier to understand. Events may seem clear-cut the next day, when police reports and newspaper accounts calmly dissect events, but life is rarely so tidy when you’re under the gun.