KSOK disk jockey Shawn Wheat played the role of hostage taker at the dorm. In the end, he surrendered and let the hostages go.

In real-life situations, Yoder said there are three things law enforcement officers want to accomplish. "The first is to contain the situation, then we want to control it and then we want to deescalate it. The last thing we want to do is break into a room and start blowing things up and having a shootout."

Wallace said the tactics that different law enforcement agencies use are always evolving. The ACPD adopted the fast approach to take out the threat quickly to minimize the casualties created by a shooter.

"We're getting more use to what kind of things can come at us and also the officers gain confidence [through the training] to take out the threat," Wallace said. "And that's important for them to have that confidence."

Wallace emphasized the need for his team to be adequately trained in the right tactics and to for his team to work cohesively together.

"Some of our people were trained in the slow and deliberate approach and some in the fast approach where guys grab each other's belts and run like crazy toward where the shots were fired and take out the threat as soon as possible."

Wallace said they prefer the fast approach to lessen casualties in a school shooting situation, because the suspects usually are not there to take hostages, instead they're there to kill.

Wallace said the communication between officers was better than last year and that is a main factor in performance. He said it was also good that they got to train with the local state troopers because "they are assigned to this area so they know that they'll be working with us and it's very possible that they could go into a situation like this with us. So, it's important that we work together and train together."

"The biggest thing we saw was that the guys had all the confidence in the world. If it had been a real thing they would have performed real well," Yoder said. "We've got several new people on our team and dispatch that are just learning and it will take a little work to work out the bugs."

They used their new command trailer the first time at the training scenario.

"It was a different place than I was use to but it was a nice place to get the negotiators in."

"You can dream up all kinds of little things to do to make it hard or un-winnable, but the training not worth a darn if you don't make it as realistic as possible and that is why we try to use role players that aren't cops." He said they get a more realistic response from civilians as role players.

Yoder said Wheat let the hostages go because he got "bored and tired" and he said that's pretty realistic situation.

"I really wasn't sure what to expect at first about taking the role as a hostage taker," Wheat said. "When you get in the role your not sure what you're going to do. I'm sure that's how it is with any hostage taker."

He said the communication between the negotiators and him was amazing in that they made him like they were his friends. "They made you feel like they were there to help you, even though they were there to help the hostages, mainly. But they were there to help you get out of there without getting killed or shot, or shooting somebody else."

"Overall, the sheriff's department and negotiators did a spectacular job. As a suspect I didn't know what they were doing. At one point they sent a person into a part of the building and I didn't even know about it."

"This type of training you'll see in major cities, but to see it in a smaller city is great because now we know that the departments will cover any situation that arises."