Peaceful Auburn Hills…A Crime Scene?
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OCC’s quiet and peaceful Auburn Hills Campus is home to a lot of crime these days – simulated crime that is. The College’s Combined Regional Emergency Services Training (CREST) facility has seen plenty of action on its streets as area police, fire and emergency services departments - who had been anxiously awaiting its construction - began to stage a wide variety of training sessions from bank robberies to hazardous material situations. CREST’s first full-fledged training exercises was held November 13, 2002, as the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department Special Response Team (SRT) staged a bank robbery, a police chase, a hostage-taking, hostage negotiations and a drug raid at one of CREST’s three homes. Deputy Norm Campbell from the Sheriff’s Department played the escaping bank robber at the training event and later told The Detroit News that he’d “done a lot of training in warehouses and abandoned buildings and most of the time they’re run down. This [CREST] is dynamic, and it is the closest you can get to the real thing.” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard agreed, saying that it is “exciting to have facilities where we can practice real-life scenarios without disrupting a neighborhood or business community. This gives us an opportunity to experiment with different approaches to emergency situations. We don’t have the luxury of experimenting in a real-life situation.” |
 Special Response Team members capture the “bank robber/hostage taker” during CREST’s first training exercises in November 2002.
Special Response Team members from the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department take aim at a “bank robber” during CREST’s first fullfledged training exercise |
