Police training to use simulated shooter

Law enforcement officials say a training exercise at Century College on Sunday with a simulated shooter was not planned in response to recent violence, specifically the workplace shooting that left seven people dead in Minneapolis.

Several county and city agencies will take part in the exercise. Residents in the surrounding neighborhood in White Bear Lake have been warned to expect sirens and traffic delays.

Cmdr. Brian Mueller of the Washington County Sheriff's Office said officials hope the exercise will be as real as possible.

"Obviously, it's tough to really mimic the sights and sounds and the horror that would go into a true scene like this," Mueller said, "but the closer we can come to training our officers in the response, the better. Then we can find out what areas we're not quite sufficient in and that we have to work on, and the areas we do well."

Mueller said the simulation will include up to 40 people playing different roles.

Mueller added that the training is all in a day's work.

"I think law enforcement in general are talking about these events or working in the smaller scale, training pretty consistently over the last 10 years or so."