KISSIMMEE, Fla. – After several mass shootings across the country this year, Kissimmee police spent the day training for what police call an "active shooter" situation.
More than 35 police officers ran hostage drills organized by police instructors. Some of those drills featured a man killing a hostage and then running into a crowd.
Recommended Videos
"The first priority is to stop the shooter because if we stop and start treating people with medical issues then the shooter is continuing to shoot other people," said Sgt. Jimmy Haddock, who organized the training exercises.
says they are an excellent way of teaching officers how to react to different situations.
"The ultimate goal is to have everybody thinking on their feet and understand that none of these situations is going to be like the one that just happened before," said Haddock.
Haddock says his team looked at radio transmissions from the recent mass shooting in Colorado where nearly a dozen people were killed inside of a movie theater.
"A lot of the training from today actually came out of the most recent shooting that happened in the Colorado theater," said Haddock.
Haddock says those calls helped police analyze what went wrong and what techniques worked.
Police are already planning for a similar event next year.