I’m sitting on the dusty, dirty floor of an abandoned building, my back to the wall. An awful draft blows into the room through broken windows. The sun went down half an hour ago, and  construction lighting makes the place bright enough for a séance, but not much else. The entire building is quiet and seemingly, save for us, empty. The only sound is my gloved hand making small circles, idly crushing a small, flat pile of grit and dust against the concrete floor.

The walkie-talkie on the floor crackles to life. “All personnel, scenario is hot!” My brother and I grab our safety helmets and push them down on our heads. We sit on the floor and wait, listening. At first we hear very little, but there is something out there--some scuffling of feet, a thud and a thump--sharp noises of quick movement, like the sounds of an indoor basketball game. Something is moving around out there.

I catch the panning beam of a flashlight and suddenly a man in a camouflage uniform and face mask is pointing a gun at me through an ironing board-sized hole in the wall. It’s the SWAT guys we’ve both been expecting.

“Got two in here! There’s two in here!” the SWAT guy shouts. The gun he’s pointing at me is real. “Get your hands on top of your head!” He orders us. I comply, quickly putting them both on the top of my helmet. The first officer covers a second officer and soon both members of the SWAT team are in the room with us. “Face down! Face down!” We go down on our bellies, hands still on top of our heads. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“Hostage!” I shout. I can’t see anything except the floor. The safety helmet is disorienting: I hear more movement outside the front door, voices giving orders I’m only vaguely aware of. “Who’s taken you hostage?” one of the SWAT officers asks. I’m suddenly at a loss for words. I…have no idea. I haven’t invented this part of the backstory yet. The SWAT officer asks again, and I don’t reply. I’m not feeling particularly creative at the moment.

“Alright, get up!” One of them says to us, “Keep your hands on top of your head. Out the door, you’re going to turn to your right. Okay Let’s go!” The SWAT officers are standing in the doorway. My brother and I quickly walk out and one of the officers falls in behind us. We’re walking back to the starting point, where the hostages are collected. It’s a long walk down a 100’ hallway only half-lit by makeshift lighting. I’m in the lead, keeping close to the wall. Next is my brother, walking behind me and to my left. We’re practically abreast. Behind us is out SWAT escort.

In the distance ahead, down the dimly lit hallway, I see a figure dressed head to toe in black. Someone is crouching in a doorway, barely visible. At first I think it’s another SWAT officer. There was one there last time, a little further on. But something is not right. I suddenly realize who it is. He should be dead, but there he is. My brother sees him also, and quietly slides to the right so he’s walking behind me.

Gunshots explode ahead of us.

“Shooter!” Our escort shouts. I hear shooting all around me. “Get in the room!” one of the officers yells at us. I try ducking into the nearest doorway ahead of me, but the door is nailed shut.

This is a bad place to be. I’m directly in the line of fire between an SWAT officer and a bad guy and they’re trying to kill each other. I’m probably dead. As I turn to try and find a safe place to cower I suddenly find myself wishing I still had that copy of Wuthering Heights stuffed down the front of my pants.

 

A month earlier. I’m having dinner with my friends on our weekly movie outing when one of them asks, “How would you like to be in an anti-terrorism exercise?” We know he has a contact in the police department, so the offer is real. My friend explains that the exercise will involve volunteers working with a local SWAT team in a realistic training scenario.

The offer to participate in the exercise feels like an invitation to visit another planet, one nearly identical to our own. Like other well-mannered citizens, I was brought up with the idea that it is wrong to shoot at the police. I’m enthusiastic, but I still feel slightly awkward about admitting that I’d like to participate, even if the police say they need the help. If I participate there’s a mental block I would have to stop and adjust called “Shooting Police is Not Okay”. Just adjust, not get rid of it. 

 We don’t ask about pay. We don’t ask how long the hours are. We don’t ask about danger and waivers. We don’t ask any questions at all, except for where and when. Four of us immediately sign up.

 

Three weeks later. Just days before the event I hardly know anything about it, except that it’s held at a former military base. I’m growing increasingly curious and start googling. The county sheriff’s department sponsoring the event has an entire web site devoted to it. The exercise is an annual event used to test the readiness of SWAT teams from across the region, as well as Federal and out of state agencies as far away as New England. More than twenty teams spend fifty hours nonstop, without rest, completing two dozen exercises, everything from storming airplanes to rappelling down the sides of high rises, to conducting fifteen mile land navigation hikes. It’s a sort of regional SWAT Olympics, and even has a snazzy logo that looks good on a coffee mug.

I watch a short video about last year’s event. It is a lot of quick cuts and dissolves of SWAT teams moving into court rooms and classrooms, SWAT guys rappelling off the rooftops of high rise buildings, SWAT teams assaulting into passenger airplanes, and police officers doing something baffling that involved a fishing pier and a robot armed with cameras and machine guns. There were also helicopter rides for the teams, inflatable boat trips, and armored car assaults. It looked very much like everything I had always wanted in an amusement park, a sort of SWAT’s Berry Farm. 

I wonder what I might end up volunteering for. Would I play a hostage? I would rather not—that seems kind of boring. It seemed like a lot of sitting around, waiting to get shot. Would I be a bad guy with a gun? I really wanted a gun to make it worthwhile. 

I also learn we’re using so-called “simmunitions”. Simmunitions are small, soap-based paint balls. Think of Tide liquid detergent dyed red, white, or blue and packed in a 9mm gelatin ball. It sounded painful, and I found out about simmunitions was a bit alarming. “Simmunitions,” the article states bluntly, “will break skin, leave welts, destroy eyes, remove finger nails.”

Really?

 

The night before the exercise. I’m excited, and slightly nervous. I’m nervous because of these so-called simmunitions. I also wonder about the mentality of those involved-- triple AAA personalities, lots of adrenaline, authoritarian mindsets--it could get interesting, not always in a good sort of way. But mostly I’m worried about those simmunitions, and I’m annoyed by how much they’re preoccupying me.

When I was twenty years old, my friends and I played paintball every weekend, and I never once gave any thought to being shot in the groin. I was shot dozens of times over the years, but was never hit once in the family jewels. It certainly would have hurt--very badly. But twenty year olds think they’re invincible, and even if I had thought about it, I would have shrugged it off.

Now I’m thirty seven and married, and it’s all I can think about. It’s humiliating, but it’s the truth--all I can think about are my precious little friends, Mr. Left and Mr. Right, and keeping them safe, and keeping blood out of my urine. When you’re 37 you think about weak streams, kidney stones, your bladder. You are saddled with worries and responsibilities. You’re looking down occasionally to see if you’re dribbling between your shoes yet.

I start thinking about wearing some protection. I had never worn a protective cup before, and I wasn’t about to start shopping for one now. I try to come up with a nice, cheap, homebrewed solution to the “shot in the groin” dilemma. In a burst of inspiration, I go to the bookshelf and picked out a pocket paperback. I was afraid a book might get damaged if I was hit, so I pick one of my wife’s instead. I started browsing her books by title. Breakfast at Tiffany’s--no, much too thin. Oh. Wuthering Heights. That could be good. It was nice and reassuringly sturdy, without a lot of flex.  The title itself is also vaguely reassuring for some reason.

I stuff the book down the front of my pants and give my groin area a good thump. Yep, that ought to do it. And nobody would know.

As I turn away from the bookshelf, my pants shift and the book goes tumbling down my leg. Two shakes and its on the parlor floor. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get a book to stay in place where I want it. I grow irritated: what was the point of having all these damn paperback classics cluttering up our bookshelf if you couldn’t stick them down your pants to protect your crotch?

 

The day of the exercise. The four of us: my brother, friends John and Bee, and I drive to the base together, check in and are briefed on what our roles would be. As it turned out, we had volunteered for the “office massacre” exercise. The exercise script read that one or more gun-wielding maniacs had started murdering people in a large office building, and SWAT had to go in and get them. It was based on a number of real-life incidents, particularly Columbine and Virginia Tech. We would do two scenarios, run one after the other, in the same building. In the first, the arriving SWAT team was only told a gunman was shooting people inside a building and they had to get him. Their priority was on getting survivors to safety and terminating the bad guy. In the second, they were to proceed under the assumption that the shooters may have committed suicide, and had to escort survivors to safety.

The volunteers were brought inside the building and the police explained what was expected of us. As the SWAT team prepared to storm the building, they knew nothing about what was going on inside other than there was at least one shooter in the building, and possibly victims, survivors, etc. The volunteers would represent surprises of various flavors. There would be three teams of two men each, the “Screaming Idiot” teams. My brother and I would be one such team. Each pair of volunteers was issued a police walkie-talkie and on cue from the controllers, would burst from hiding rooms and run at the SWAT teams. We would pretend to be panicked survivors begging to be rescued, crazed with fear, screaming and waving our hands.

The last two volunteers were Bad Guy #1 and Bad Guy #2.  Bad Guy #1 was John, who given an M-16 with a blank firing adapter, and, because the M-16 had a tendency to jam, two backup pistols. John was the end of the line, the gunman that the SWAT teams would be looking for. Bad Guy #2 was our friend Bee. He was the real surprise—a second gunman. The police had looked at tall, lanky Bee and asked, “Are you claustrophobic?” The next thing Bee knew, he was hiding in an old gym locker, door shut, with a walkie-talkie and a 9mm Beretta pistol.

The entire exercise took place on the second floor of an abandoned, empty office building. It would be largely confined to a narrow corridor and all the rooms feeding into it, and police tape marked off everything else as off-limits. Officers from the local police department would act as controllers and orchestrate the scenario. They would send the Screaming Idiots running out to greet the SWAT teams, and they would move the Bad Guy shooters around like chess pieces. They would grade the visiting teams and, above all as far as I was concerned, make sure things were safe and didn’t get out of hand for the volunteers.

The fraternity and culture of police, the attitude and mindset, the uniforms and carrying guns--everything that made up being a police officer in 21st Century America--was fascinating to observe. We were only visitors to this world of law enforcement, something that was not easy to forget. It was a lot like hanging around a pack of friendly lions—the lions were nice enough and everyone was having a good time, but everyone knew who was in charge. It was also interesting to see the police in a relatively unguarded moment. Most people only see the police when they are responding to problems: your party is too loud, someone just stole your car, you just shot someone. Tempers are flared, emotions are running high, and someone’s head might be missing. Usually someone is doing something they don’t want to be doing, and that includes the police. Seeing such a limited side to them, it’s easy to stereotype them. Halfway through the exercise I realized how important it was to include civilians, and actually wished, as annoying as it would be for the police, that everyone have the opportunity to share this experience. Perhaps not with worrying about being shot in the groin.

On the way to our posts we pass a killing ground---a killing ground of mannequins. A dozen or so mannequins lay scattered on the ground, fake blood staining their torsos. Most of the mannequins are posed sitting on the floor, slumped against the wall, as though they had been shot, leaned against the wall to steady themselves, and then slowly sank to the floor as they died. This is the first thing the SWAT teams would see upon entering the building. The scene did a pretty good job of setting the story up as the Great Ross Dress For Less Massacre of 1993. Some of the mannequins lay in shadow, obscuring some of their more mannequin-like aspects and making them look more like real bodies.

We walk over the bodies and move on.

 

A half hour later I am sitting in a drafty, dirty, unfurnished room with my brother. Together we were “Screaming Idiot Team Two”. Both of us were issued gigantic plastic helmets that covered our eyes, ears, nose, jaw, and that made us look like giant ant-men. We are waiting for the SWAT team to show up.

It’s cold; as soon as the sun went down the wind turned chilly and started blowing hard straight into my room. There’s a constant heavy draft coming through the windows that I can’t get away from—apparently some of the people living near the base decided break almost all of the windows in the building with concrete bricks. Not only are the windows broken, there’s no furniture or anything to hide behind. I start to develop a hacking cough that will turn into a bad cold in a matter of hours.

Suddenly the radio crackles and we hear the voices of the controllers. “All volunteers and everyone, stand by.” We grabbed our helmets and prepared to don them.

“Scenario hot!” It’s on! My brother and I wait for our cues. We put our helmets on and listen, trying to follow the action. Right about now the SWAT team would be entering the building, passing the Great Ross Massacre, hunting for the shooter. We hear nothing until suddenly there is the sound of sheet metal banging around. Then, shouting. “Drop the gun! Drop the gun!” They had found Bee in his hiding place in the gym locker. More shouting. “Put your hands on top of your head and drop to the ground!”

We hear the sound of distant gunfire--John had been told to let loose a few rounds with the M-16 after Bee had been arrested to remind the SWAT team who they were really looking for.

The walkie-talkie barks. “Scream Team One, come out!” Suddenly we hear the stamping of feet and lots of panicked yelling and shouting. If any of the Screaming Idiots were going to get shot, it would most likely be these guys.  

It was implied that the Screaming Idiots could, just to make things interesting for the SWAT team, make vaguely threatening gestures or moves that could cause the SWAT guys to overreact. We could look like we might be hiding a gun, or try to hug the SWAT guys in an ill-timed display of gratitude, or simply not listen to them when they tried to order us around. The SWAT guys were supposed to keep their cool and not shoot us unless we were a threat. If they shot us and we were unarmed, it would look very, very bad. I toyed with this idea but decided that unless I could shoot at them, I didn’t want to risk getting shot. It just didn’t seem like a good trade.

I wait for gunshots. Privately, I want them the other team be shot, so the SWAT team would be more careful when I come out. But there is no shooting. Damn.

“Scream Team Two, come out!” I put down the walkie-talkie and follow my brother outside, the pair of us waving our hands and screaming for help. We’re immediately confronted by six men pointing guns at me, looking like a mob of house cats about to pounce on a pair of mice.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” I scream. “He’s trying to kill us! He’s going to kill us all!” The SWAT team orders us to put our hands on top of our heads. I’m anxious, standing out here in the hall, because shooting could start at any moment. Get me out of here, I think to myself. The team quickly hustles us to safety behind a wall of team members to the rear.

There are several pauses before we get moving, and hands still on top of my head, I watch the SWAT operators with keen interest. They are not at all what I expected. You might think SWAT operators would be shouting, dominating, in your face guys. I expected gorillas with moustaches. In reality they’re tall, lean, kind of wiry guys. They are remarkably relaxed.  

The SWAT team continues to clear the exercise area, picking up Scream Team #3. That left only John to deal with. John had been stationed on the first floor, kicking off the exercise with a burst of gunfire to draw SWAT inside, then periodically popping off a few rounds on command to remind them to keep them moving. Parts of the floor were pitch black, and John had to race from one end of the building to the other without running into something and knocking himself out. Having lured the team through the second floor and down the staircase to a confrontation, John made his last stand, surrounded by a dozen paper targets scattered around the room simulating innocent hostages he had taken.

SWAT moves so fast that they almost beat him to the room where he is make his stand. The SWAT officers corner him like a rat, and before he can shoot any of them, he’s been shot several times in the chest with simmunitions, marking his chest with bright red splashes of goo, each splash a bullet. John refuses to go down until they get a killing shot on him, which delays his death by one second at most. All the bad guys were now killed or captured.

“Safe and decock all guns,” comes the order from the controllers. The SWAT officer guarding us dutifully flicks his pistol safety, depresses the decocking lever, and slides the pistol into his holster.

“Exercise is cold.” And it’s over.

 

The second scenario found me trapped in the shootout with Bee and the SWAT. The second time the screaming idiot teams were told to stay put in their rooms. The SWAT teams would come find us, pull us out, and take us to a safe place. The assumption was that the shooter had gone silent--possibly having committed suicide--and we were the survivors. 

The SWAT had found Bee in the lockers the first time, but missed him the second time around. It seemed like a baffling oversight, particularly because the room was so small, the lockers were the only feature in the room, and each team had found him the first time. The SWAT team had been up for more than twenty four hours already, and was probably feeling the effects of sleep deprivation. The controllers unleashed Bee, ordering him to come out shooting, and he took the SWAT team by surprise.

He was the mysterious figure I saw crouched in the doorway, seconds before the entire scene erupted in gunshots, and he was waiting to get a clear shot at the SWAT officer behind me. Turning to flee, I collided with my brother as the two of us both tried to get through the closest open doorway at the same time. Abruptly the fire stopped, and one of the officers guarded us while the others went to secure Bee’s corpse.

Once Bee had been confirmed dead we were properly escorted back to the holding area. The SWAT seemed a bit shaken, probably worried someone else would pop out of nowhere. We were made to lay face down, our hands behind our heads, waiting for the exercise to end. I was breathing hard from my brush with death, and the helmet’s air holes were not letting me get all the air I wanted. It took a few minutes of me trying to control my breathing before I got it down to normal. By the time I got it there and could hear something other my breathing, the exercise was over.

 

Walking out of the building together, the four of us pieced together what had happened. Bee had managed to shoot the SWAT officer several times, sparing my brother and I who were less than five feet away. He was cut down seconds later, but the damage had been done. He shot the officer at a range of thirty feet. He was untrained, completely outnumbered, and was wearing one of those awful ant head helmets that was uncomfortable and difficult to see through. Everything was in motion and his targets were moving. It was a fairly considerable feat of marksmanship for a public school teacher with no combat training.

It was time to leave. I wanted to stay for another round but my coughing was getting increasingly nasty, and it was time to get out of the cold. We turned in our gear and said goodbye to the other volunteers. The exercise controllers were pleased with Bee’s performance. “Who are you guys with?” one of the police asked as we signed out and prepared to go home.

John pointed at Bee as we walked away. “He’s with the Oakland Unified School District.”