Training under fire:
Lodi police lead final exam for Lincoln Technical Academy students at Stockton airsoft field
Plastic BBs flew through the air while 24 teens from Lodi engaged in simulated combat at CQB City, an 18,000-square-foot indoor airsoft field in Stockton on Thursday morning.
The high school juniors and seniors were all enrolled in the Administration of Justice class at Lincoln Technical Academy in Lodi, taught by Lt. Shad Canestrino of the Lodi Police Department, who explained that his students were taking their final examination at the airsoft range consisting of four different training exercises, each worth 25 percent of their grade.
“Basically, as long as they participate they get credit. Not bad for a final exam, is it?” Canestrino said
Split into four groups, the students donned protective face masks before rotating between different simulated scenarios in which a law enforcement agent might need to use deadly force.
Armed with plastic training pistols at first, the students practiced conducting room-to-room searches and high-risk vehicle stops, as well as responding to a mentally ill person threatening their family with a gun and rescuing an injured police officer.
The students then repeated the exercises with airsoft guns, replica automatic rifles and semiautomatic handguns that fire 6 mm plastic BBs at up to 400 feet per second. Retired Sgt. Steve Van Meter of the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department, who helps Canestrino teach the class, gave instructions to a group of students preparing to rescue an injured officer, a scenario that he said is not uncommon in the field.
“They did a dry walkthrough first, then rotated back to see if they can put what they learned in training into practice. What they learned the first time falls apart when the bullets start flying, and my job is to help them keep it together and rescue the officer in the midst of the confusion,” Van Meter said.
One student held a ballistic shield and a plastic training handgun to protect the students behind him carrying a stretcher.
Two students armed with airsoft rifles took overwatch positions behind wooded building facades and provided covering fire while their comrades rescued the dummy that lay next to a decrepit school bus while taking fire from Canestrino’s son, Gage, an eighth-grader who volunteered his time to help his father that day.
After observing for a few rounds, Canestrino offered me an opportunity to participate myself, first as a stretcher-bearer and then providing overwatch. We were able to rescue the injured officer both times, although I did get shot in the shoulder the second time. The plastic BBs did sting a bit, but the adrenaline and my nylon flight jacket made it easy to ignore.
“The goal is to get the injured officer out. If they can take out the shooter, great. Otherwise, they need to put down enough cover fire to rescue the officer safely,” Canestrino said.
Elsewhere in CQB City, two students armed with airsoft rifles standing behind the doors of a police cruiser while they ordered another student, playing the role of a drive-by shooting suspect, out of a vehicle to practice high-risk traffic stops. The suspect opened fire with an airsoft pistol before being shot by the officers and laying on the ground.
“The goal here is to see how the officers control the suspect out of the vehicle, use shields and work in teams. The suspect’s magazine has been disabled — we don’t want them to shoot the windows of our cars. The suspects think they’re shooting, but we didn’t tell them their guns aren’t working,” Canestrino said.
After the students completed the four scenarios, Canestrino announced that they would practice responding to an active shooter at a school. Approximately six students acted as, well, students, sitting on the floor and directing the officers to the shooters’ locations.
Gage and I played the role of the shooters, hiding behind walls and firing at officers before being shot ourselves while Canestrino activated a police cruiser’s siren and firing a blank pistol into the air. I hit two officers using an airsoft pistol Canestrino lent me before I was struck in the face mask and stomach, falling to the ground to play dead as per his instructions.
“You’re not playing hideand-seek with the cops. Most active shooters know that they’re not going to make it out alive, so they fight until they’re taken down or they shoot themselves. Since you guys can’t shoot yourselves, just keep shooting until you get hit and then fall to the ground so they know you’re down,” Canestrino said.