BOULDER, Colo. — Anyone near CU Boulder today may have heard gunshots coming from Folsom Field. No need to be alarmed, police snipers from across the country and Colorado practiced their shooting inside the venue as part of their crisis-response training.
"It is very unique because it's actually live fire," said Carissa Jaquish, public safety manager for CU Boulder Police Department.
Twenty officers from Boulder, Lakewood, Arvada, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C., are practicing how to keep crowds of thousands of people, safe.
"As we review active harmer incidents across the nation and then also knowing firsthand our community in Boulder has been impacted, we see the need for more real world, live scenario training," said Jaquish. "We know that we don't want to be behind and have them called in. We'd rather have them here and ready and so it's really important that they practice here as well because they're here doing game days."
Practicing inside the stadium at the angles and places of where they might be in a real situation is crucial.
"This is just an extension of reality-based training. When we provide that, we enable officers to make better decisions and also know how to utilize their resources more appropriately," said Mark Lang, director of sniper training at Tacflow Academy. "We really need to strive for making sure we're constantly looking at what can we do to protect the public when they come to big venues like this."
Protecting the public and preventing mass casualty events is why they're here and why they continue to practice.
"These officers stand ready to defend this venue and in fact any large scale event whether it's here, whether it's in Las Vegas, whether it's in Washington, D.C., that we're there to defend and protect the public," said Lang.
Officers will be back to practice at Folsom Field on Friday afternoon until 11 p.m.
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