Shooting at fixed paper targets in a brightly lit range has little application to what is required of an officer in the street. For several years, the Santa Ana Police range facility has used a variety of props to simulate cover and concealment typically available to the patrol officer.
Props can be real or fabricated from lighter materials like cardboard and plywood.
The use of training props encourages officers to seek and move to cover as they should in the field. In addition, props can be used to partially obstruct the officer's view of suspects, who, in the real world, are also seeking cover and concealment. Training officers under conditions unlike those they typically face is unsafe, unproductive, and creates unnecessary exposure to liability. That is not to say, however, that simulating field conditions is always easy. The rapid disappearance of outdoor ranges poses significant challenges to trainers with access to only indoor facilities.