ST. MARTINVILLE — St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office Lt. Kyra Cole stood in the lobby of Central High School, evaluating the situation. A school shooting call had come in, and Cole was one of the first responders to arrive on the scene.

Across the hall, she saw one victim lying on the floor. To her right, motion caught her eye as a suspect began running down the hallway deeper into the school.

Cole fired her service automatic once. The fleeing suspect went down as she headed down the hallway.

Luckily, the scene was not a real life-or-death emergency. Cole was putting the SMPSO’s new VirTra 300 use-of-force simulator through its paces.

The $650,000 facility, located at the SMPSO’s firing range on Francois Road, allows officers to train in extremely realistic situations like the school shooting drill. But the simulator can also be used to reinforce basic skills ranging from basic marksmanship to such mundane happenings as applying tourniquets and identifying vicious dogs.

“It will get your pulse rate going,” Cole said. She and SMPSO Cpt. Cliff Dore are instructors at the facility.

With Dore in the control room Wednesday morning, Cole ran through several scenarios. One has officers moving through a courthouse, seeking out suspects who have taken hostages inside the building. In another, a suspect standing trial rushes a witness giving testimony, giving the prospective trainee a split second to react.

In addition to measuring whether students react correctly or not, the system can also qualify their reactions. In the case of a knife-wielding suspect rushing an officer, the after-action review shows not only where the officer’s shots landed, it also shows the distance the suspect covered while the student decided what force to use.

The system itself cost the SMPSO approximately $300,000, with the rest of the funds going toward the construction of the building to house the simulator. The purchase came after more than a year and a half of research, including a visit to the U.S. Customs Service Office in New Orleans to visit the other VirTra system in the state.

The simulator is stunningly realistic. The weapons used are real, with the barrels replaced and CO2 magazines installed to simulate recoil and sound when they are fired.

“The weight is exactly the same as our service weapons, so it is very realistic,” Cole said.

The simulations are projected on five screens, arranged in a hexagon with one side open. Trainees have to keep their situational awareness at its height as the 300-degree range allows for some hazards to pop up either alongside or behind the trainee.

“There is one suspect in the tree over there,” Cole pointed out in one simulation based on a call to a home invasion scene. “There is another in the shrubbery alongside the house.”

The simulator also lets the subjects know when they have been shot. The operator in the control room can trigger a device worn on the belt that administers an electric shock at the operator’s discretion.

Other law enforcement agencies will be able to use the simulator as well, said SMPSO Public Information officer Maj. Ginny Higgins.