Simulation in Orange County has officers in real-life school shooting settings

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — No one ever wants to think about a school shooting, but the reality is that it could happen, so emergency responders in Orlando used Freedom Middle School as a mock drill of a shooting scene on Thursday.

School resource officers from around the country are in Orlando taking part in the special conference.

The officers spent much of the week going through tactical training. On Thursday, they put the training into action by taking part in drills at the school.

In the drills, the officers react to different situations involving a gunman in the school.

To make Thursday's exercise as real as possible, the officers carried replica Glock 17 Airsoft guns and even fired them. They wore protective masks for safety measures.

The course was designed to be as much like the real thing as possible, with a gunman loose inside a school and innocent students and teachers around.

During the training exercises, several officers were shot, which would have been potentially deadly in real life.

A representative for the Orange County School District said he is happy to see the drills taking place in Orange County.

"It's extremely important," said Jason Loomis of the Orange County School District. "We're getting different viewpoints; we're getting different training tips, different suggestions. So they're bringing information to help us that we may not think of -- different ways they're doing their policies, their trainings in their organization that we can use with our district."

WFTV