Charlottetown police training scenario aims to be 'as close to reality as you can get'

To onlookers, it looked like a genuine crisis: Colonel Gray High School was on lockdown, surrounded by officers with the tactical unit of the Charlottetown police force.

Inside, a 16-year-old student had barricaded himself with a weapon. Despite the best efforts of negotiators, the suspect refused to come out peacefully. 

As the negotiations wound down on Thursday morning, officers clad in tactical gear and holding carbine rifles prepared to breach the school and start sweeping the halls and classrooms for the student.

But none of it was real. Charlottetown police officers were taking part in a training scenario to ensure they're ready in the event that a real crisis takes place. 

"You have to be prepared. If we don't train for it and something happens, then it can be chaos," said Jennifer McCarron, Charlottetown's deputy chief of uniformed police services.

"It's a great learning experience, and it's real. The scenarios are as close to reality as you can get, so when something does happen, it's in the back of your mind."

The force's negotiators and its tactical unit treat the training as if it's a real incident. The team researches people portraying the potential suspects, including speaking to their family members and studying their social media activity. 

"You don't want to bring up something that's going to trigger them, you want to keep it positive, you want to try to talk them through it," said McCarron, who was a police negotiator for 12 years. 

"It's important that we know if they suffer from any mental health issues, are they close to their family, if they're reasonable. Is [there] a chance we can talk them out or is it going to be a use-of-force thing?"

The officers do a week of training like this each year, including four days of smaller-scale scenarios in the Summerside area, followed by a couple of larger incidents in Charlottetown. 

The second training session Thursday involved a man at the provincial legislature distraught about his employment and housing situation. He wanted to confront the premier and "take matters into his own hands." 

Just as in real life, none of the officers who participated in the training knew what crisis scenario they'd have to contend with. McCarron said it's important that the officers are able fall back on this training — because when it's not a simulation, every second matters. 

"Nothing ever goes off without a hitch in police work," McCarron said. 

"You can plan all you want, but there's always something that comes up, and that's kind of what we want to do is throw a wrench into some of the training … and they have to react through it, work through it and hopefully come to a good conclusion."