NYPD drill simulates Mumbai-style terror attack

"I'm hit! I'm hit! Aaagh!"

The NYPD officer crumpled to the ground next to a fallen brethren, got up and limped away from a terrorist suicide bomb blast that had just occurred.

The other officer down appeared lifeless as more officers, clad in protective vests and helmets, pulled him back to the shelter of an Emergency Service Unit armored vehicle. A police dog named Oakley barked in alarm.

Luckily, the two officers weren't really hurt Thursday. They were part of a tactical simulation of a Mumbai-style attack in lower Manhattan. It tested the NYPD's ability to deal with a terrorist commando assault.

"We decided to train additional officers in the use of heavy weapons and close quarter tactics," NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters. He spoke before the exercise started at a section of the Bronx police firing range in Rodman's Neck set up to resemble the financial district.

Kelly said the department took officers from the organized crime control bureau and trained them to use assault rifles and submachine guns and advanced tactics to supplement the 400 Emergency Service cops who already have that training.

"This is what we do. We prepare for these kinds of events," Kelly said.

One of the failings of the Mumbai police response to the 2008 attack, which killed more than 170 people in at least 10 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks across the city, was that the terrorists were better armed.

The intense, half-hour NYPD tactical drill was designed to test coordination and actions between police units during a bloody terror scenario supposedly unfolding in lower Manhattan. It all took place under the watchful eyes of Kelly, Chief of Special Operations Charles Kammerdener and Deputy Insp. Robert Lukach, the incident commander.

The heavily armed police officers entered a fictional downtown office building and hotel, confronting dummies and real people representing the dead and injured. The officers had to deal with a lot: an unexploded bomb, a bus filled with frightened passengers and building snipers.

A police helicopter was used to neutralize a rooftop sniper and documents found on one terror suspect indicated the Empire State Building had been targeted.

At a quick debriefing Kelly seemed pleased.

"Well done," he said, giving a thumbs up.

Police officers also thought things went well, particularly with radio communications. To remedy a lack of tactical sights for assault rifles more were on order, officials said.