Academy graduates reunite

Andrew Edwards

They came, they saw, they shot back.

They were more than 50 graduates of the Laguna Beach Police

Department’s Citizen’s Academy who reunited Saturday to get a taste

of two of the grittier aspects of police training. After a quick

lunch at the Golden West College Police Academy in Huntington Beach,

the guests had a chance to train for life or death situations with

the academy’s firearms simulator and duke it out with police in a

mock baton fight.

The simulator is an $80,000 machine that lets police cadets learn

when to shoot and when to hold their fire. While a training officer

mans a computer that plays recorded scenarios, two cadets watch the

action unfold on a large screen in front of them. The cadets each

carry an automatic pistol, a Glock and a Beretta that are rigged to a

gas device that causes the weapon to recoil when the trigger is

pulled. Instead of bullets, the automatics fire a laser at the screen

and the computer tells the trainer if the cadets missed, wounded or

killed their target. The trainer tells the cadets if they made a

sound decision or if they acted outside of police guidelines.

“I use this on recruits to see what their thought process is,”

Officer Bob Van Gorder said.

Van Gorder handled the computer while visitors took turns on the

simulator. The scenarios ran to the hectic extremes of life on the

streets. High speed chases, knife wielding maniacs, hostage

situations and a nut with an AK-47 were the order of the day.

On his turn, Brian Mellen faced off against the

Kalashnikov-wielding villain. He had to decide what to do when a man,

who was described in a voice-over as a suspicious person who was seen

staring at a business, burst out of his car and fired a burst at

Mellen and his partner. The two fired back, and the actor playing the

criminal went down on the screen, only to whip a out a pistol and

fire off a few more rounds.

“It’s almost like playing a game,” Mellen said, “but when you

think about that, it’s not a game ... it’s very sobering.”

Whereas the firearms simulator was a high-tech exercise that

required people to use their brains as much as their killer instinct,

the baton training was a more physical, visceral activity. The object

was to use a padded baton to fend off two attackers for a full

minute.

When Mary Lawson took her try at the event, she challenged reserve

officer Ben Teshener and police volunteer Ross Fallah. Her

adversaries wore padded helmets and carried padded shields for their

protection. The three were a flurry of blows and counter-blows as

Lawson swung with all her might against Teshener and Fallah, and the

three kept the intensity on full blast until time was up.

“The adrenaline was flowing, I was trying to figure out a way to

get away and at the same time defend,” she said.

The event was open to Citizen Academy graduates and their

families. The police department hosts two academy classes per year

and the next session is scheduled to begin in September.