The New York Police Department wants everyone to know that shooting a gun on a subway platform is really hard. Two police officers shot two bystanders and a knife-welding fare evader in a Brooklyn subway station last month. One passenger remains in critical condition after getting shot in the head. The NYPD is now bringing a tactical simulator to the neighborhood so the public can make the same mistakes themselves, instead of addressing why two officers decided to open fire.
An NYPD precinct community council meeting in Brooklyn attempted to dance around the subway shooting, but things quickly went south once it was brought up. THE CITY detailed what happened after an assistant police chief refused to comment on the incident:
Shortly after, Assistant Chief Scott Henderson, head of Patrol Borough Brooklyn North, offered one solution: a tactical simulator called the “FATS machine,” which stands for Firearms Training System. That system, formerly used by the NYPD for training, gives participants a gun connected to the simulator and powered by compressed CO2 gas and lets them run through different scenarios they might encounter as a police officer.
“I have secured that machine, we’re going to bring it here to Brownsville,” Henderson said. “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but sometimes you gotta walk in people’s shoes. So we’re gonna bring that in the near future,” he pledged.
The notion that stepping into a shooting simulator will change opinions marginalizes policing to the level of a professional sport. However, a faulting quarterback who threw two interceptions doesn’t carry the same life-altering implications as shooting two innocent people.
The family of Gregory Delpeche, the 49-year-old bystander shot in the head, filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the city to seek $80 million in damages, CBS News reports. A 26-year-old woman, the other bystander, was grazed by a bullet. A round also ricocheted and hit an officer under his left armpit. It was a reckless tragedy that could have been avoided with just an ounce of restraint.