SMYRNA, TN (WSMV) -
Smyrna police practiced Wednesday against a situation similar to what happened inside an Aurora, CO, theater.
It has been nearly a month since a Colorado man shot and killed 12 people and wounded 58 others during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises.
In their training Wednesday, police used the Malco Theater near Sam Ridley Parkway for the training exercise. Officers worked on their response time and how to take action if there were ever trouble inside the theater.
"They did a hostage scenario. They did a scenario involving an active shooter. It's my understanding they just did a suspicious person roaming around the theater," said Smyrna Police Chief Kevin Arnold.
This kind of training is crucial to saving time and lives, because it gives the officers a chance to become familiar with the facility.
"The amount of places people had to hide in there was just astronomical when they started going in to do a theater-to-theater search," Arnold said.
Smyrna police talked about the exercise before the tragic event in Colorado. But it was the chaos and confusion at that Colorado theater that convinced local officials to make this training happen in a movie theater.
"We have done them at schools and old houses. And we have done them at the hospital. We've done them at a variety of banks and other businesses," Arnold said.
In the meantime, the Malco Roxy theater is also trying to put its moviegoers at easy by adding weekend security officers.
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