A member of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department SWAT team and an Encinitas emergency medical technician carry a victim to an ambulance during a January simulation training in San Diego. Mass casualty simulation training has been adopted by more first responders nationwide. Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline
SAN DIEGO, Calif. — The pop-pop-pop of gunfire cracked just as the rain started to fall in grisly synchronicity. Then the screams began.
Within moments, civilians lay strewn across the ground, some lifeless, others writhing in pain. Blood flowed in streams that pooled with the rainwater on the muddying ground littered with shell casings.
Three gunmen quickly opened fire on a San Diego County Sheriff’s Department armored BearCat truck arriving in response. It crawled along an alleyway. Half a dozen SWAT members pointed rifles into open doorways or fired back from behind corners.
One assailant, wearing black gloves and a graying black beard, stood on a third-floor apartment balcony and, as deputies came closer, threw a Molotov cocktail at two white cars parked below. The explosion sent a blast of heat and sound, its boom punctuated by the gunman’s AK-47.