Put yourself in the driver’s seat of a squad car, patroling the placid streets of suburbia on a sunny afternoon.
You decide to stop two burly men on a motorcycle because they aren’t wearing helmets, which is required in your state.
“Can I see your license?” you ask the driver.
The two riders dismount, and one of them heads your way.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” he snarls. The other rider, meanwhile, pulls out a switchblade and unleashes a string of obscenities.
What do you do?
Vernon Hills Police Cmdr. Jerry Storer chose to pull his gun and bark: “Stay back. Stay back.” But his commands weren’t enough.
In the split-second that followed, the motorcycle rider plunged forward with the knife before Storer could get off a shot.
Storer was the loser in a newly purchased, high-tech video game that Vernon Hills police hope will prepare its officers for such scenarios on the streets. It’s called the Firearms Training Sys-tem, or FATS, and police say it is particularly useful in suburban departments where monotony is the norm and violent confrontations are rare.
“Probably a Chicago officer goes through scenarios like this every day,” Storer said. “I think it’s perfect for an officer here. It’s easy to become complacent when 90 percent of your calls are service-oriented.”
FATS is another example of how computers and other high-tech equipment are changing the nature of police work. Computer literacy is almost a requirement for many police officers today. Computers are becoming a standard in many police cars, allowing quick access to information on suspects. And officers are using lasers and computers to monitor speeding cars, match blood samples and reconstruct accidents.
“We’ve come just miles and miles in the last couple years with technological developments,” said Vernon Hills Police Chief Gary Kupsak. The advancements cut down on administrative red tape, enhance training and aid in investigations, he said.
But a real-life political scenario is complicating Vernon Hills’ latest training plans. South suburban Harvey, which sold the FATS system to a consortium of police departments that includes Vernon Hills’ and five other Lake County departments, is demanding the equipment back.
Harvey Mayor David N. Johnson said the city’s former police chief sold the system without seeking the approval of the City Council.
“The bottom line is it was an unauthorized sale, and we want the equipment back,” he said in an interview last month. Johnson said the city’s attorneys were drawing up a formal letter to Vernon Hills.
But Kupsak said he has not heard from Harvey since early February, when, he said, a police administrator called and told him, “The mayor wants the machine back.” And Harvey officials have not returned two weeks worth of phone messages from reporters.
Regardless, Kupsak said he has no intention of giving the system back. It was purchased for $25,000 in January by police departments in Vernon Hills, Lake Forest, Lake Zurich, Libertyville, Gurnee and Buffalo Grove.
“As far as I’m concerned, we own it,” Kupsak said, adding that Harvey has cashed the check.
Vernon Hills is so confident the Harvey controversy will pass that it has run all its officers through the FATS training. The village will turn the machine over to Libertyville next week, which will keep it for two months before passing it along to the other departments.
The maker of the system, Firarms Training Systems Inc., is based in Georgia. About 800 systems have been sold worldwide. Company officials said that about 50 departments in the Chicago area own or have access to the system, including departments in Oak Lawn, Calumet City, Naperville, Joliet and Waukegan.
A FATS simulator also is used at Commonwealth Edison’s nuclear plants and by the Chicago offices of the Internal Revenue Service and Drug Enforcement Administration. The Chicago Housing Authority is buying a FATS machine, company officials said.
It was developed eight years ago and basically consists of a screen, a projector, a computer and a laser disc. Each disc has 35 or 40 scenarios.
The scenarios play randomly, so officers do not get the same ones during training sessions. They stand about 15 feet away from the screen and shoot at it with a modified 9 mm semi-automatic handgun.
Each shot is marked by a dot on the screen. A green dot indicates a hit, a red dot, a lethal hit. But not every scenario requires shooting.
FATS is not a substitute for regular firearms training on the gun range, Storer said. But it improves officers’ split-second response and makes them more cautious in routine situations, such as traffic stops.
“It’s probably the closest thing you can come to real life,” he said.
