Prince George's Police Give Civilians A Taste of Life-And-Death Decision Making

LANHAM, Md. (WUSA) -- So far this year Prince George's County police have reduced the number of incidents where they fire weapons and use force compared to the same period last year.

Thursday they invited civilians to their training academy to see and experience some of the techniques officers use to make use-of-force decisions.

Commonly called "shoot-don't-shoot" scenarios, an increasing number of civilians are being brought to the academy for a taste of training. In particular, county grand jurors who may be called upon to press charges against police, and who must sort out the witnesses accounts of violent encounters are routinely offered the experience.

"It does give them a small fraction of an idea of what it's like to be in law enforcement," said Cpl. Eugene Mills, a veteran trainer.

The split-second scenarios challenge participants to make life-and-death decisions and to experience the "tunnel vision" effect caused by high stress situations that make remembering details of the incidents extremely difficult in the aftermath.