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They keep moving through the room, patrolling for any shooters, and they pass through a door. As they enter, the lead officer trips over a string that is attached to a chair.

“All right, the first officer is dead,” the training guide says.

Gene Burton, Ball State University director of public safety, said the training sessions combine classroom work and a realistic simulation to teach about 70 officers how to combat an active shooter.

Plans on paper are important to have, he said, but plans lose value if officers don’t have hands-on training in those situations. Also, campus incidents such as the deadly shooting at Virginia Tech in April 2007, emphasize the importance of these exercises. Tech student Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 before taking his own life.

“We try to do something to this effect yearly,” Burton said.

“As a law enforcement officer, our job is to move toward that target,” he said. “That’s the most difficult part. That’s why we train like this.”

Jeff Whitesell, a Yorktown police officer, said he’s attending the training sessions because of the importance of knowing what to do if a shooting ever happens.

Whitesell went to Ball State ’s training because it was local, and if a shooting ever happens at a local school, he would probably get the call. If a shooting ever did happen, he said, a police department could never get enough help.