When hearing the words “greatest country in the world” thoughts are often turned toward America, but lately this great nation has been divided more than ever. With the recent happenings in police brutality cases and riots that were sparked from these happenings, what people do not understand is the struggles of a police officer’s choice to make a decision. Many innocent police officers have been killed trying to resolve these problems. What the people cannot see is just how nerve racking and hard it is for an officer to make a decision in a split second. The officer behind the gun must be able to decide whether to shoot or not to shoot, but even if he or she does make the right decision, people will still shun them calling them killers, or racists, or murderers. Everyone has an opinion, but nobody has the right to have an opinion in those circumstances unless you were the person behind the gun because they have to live with those decisions for the rest of their life whether it was wrong or right.

Delphi Community High School offers a criminal justice course which puts students who are interested in law enforcement into a class full of others on the same track. Every year our school is granted the opportunity to receive a police simulator known as F.A.T.S., which puts students through a real life situation of a police officer going out on a call and possibly  the situation ending up in the worst possible outcome. Students involved in the criminal justice class responded in very similar ways. Senior Jensyn Reef said, “The simulation really teaches you when to shoot and when not to shoot.”  The simulation allows students to the experience relevant life and death situations that police officers encounter, but without the dangers. But how hard is it to pull the trigger? Marco Rayon, senior, responded,  “I didn’t think too much of it. I knew it was a simulation,” and Jensyn Reef said, “The scenarios place you in real life situations and it really opens your eyes.” These students felt that the simulation was very beneficial to their class and they enjoyed the time using it, all while being taught numerous different ways to handle situations. Mr Hatke is also present during these simulations making sure the student is doing the right thing and not becoming discouraged if the simulation does not go as planned. What is great about this simulation is that Mr. Hatke does not grade students based on their outcome of the situation. He would rather see the students be worried about learning to make the right decisions rather than  being worried about their grade.  
I personally had the opportunity to use this simulator along with fellow staff writer Kain Myer. When I was put into the position as the police officer, my heart was racing and every time I was put into a situation I was always facing the “shoot or don’t shoot” decisions. Just getting prepared for the simulation was somewhat nerve racking. I had to place a little pouch on my hit that acted as a holster for my weapon and also was handed a police grade firearm. Mr Hatke was in the back of the room deciding which scenario we would do and what the outcome would be. After multiple different scenarios we had finished our police simulator and were amazed by just how helpful this could be. When I asked Kain how he felt about the simulator overall, he said, “It doesn’t give full experience, but it is able to give accurate representation.” When Kain and I did the simulation we were faced with some scenarios that resulted in difficult outcomes, but still had to make the decision to shoot. What people do not understand about the police officer’s daily struggle though is that it’s not easy to judge a situation and know when to shoot, and also if they do shoot, people will shun them because they don’t understand what happened. This simulation has brought a lot to police forces around the country, and has most definitely brought a lot of knowledge to our own students pursuing a career in law enforcement on how to successfully handle a real life situation.