Behind the scene of a mass shooting with Michigan State Police

Michigan State Police is showing folks what it really looks like at the scene of mass shooting by holding at mass shooting exercise.

It's a situation you never want to see, but as Michigan State Police Lt. Michael Shaw explains, it is an exercise that requires both preparation, teamwork and takes time.  

"One of the biggest questions I always get is what is taking so long?" says Lt. Shaw.

On Thursday, Michigan State Police lead several local MSP agencies through a mass fatality exercise at Proud Lake Recreation Area Headquarters in Commerce Township.

"We're going to show you today some of the things that we never allow you guys to see because you're so far behind a yellow crime tape," Shaw says.

Tape that spreads across three buildings, staging the scene of a mass shooting.

"This is one of the areas for the 'diversity fair' where people are meeting inside for the fair. When the domestic terrorist came into there and became an active shooting scene and started shooting people inside of the building," Shaw said as he showed media members the inside of a staged building.

Inside and along the floor included bullet casings, blood trails and body bags.  

"From a crime scene perspective, we have seven labs across the state, about 110 people that are specially trained to go out to crime scene. So they're forensic scientists in the lab first, but they also respond to crime scenes. So we have a ton of assets that we can deploy at crime scenes like these, and that's what we do," an MSP Forensics Laboratory detective told reporters.

The goal of the exercise, according to Shaw, to make sure detectives are properly trained physically and mentally for any potential investigation.

"It gives a good practical exercise for our lab technicians and our detectives because they're actually coming out here to these scenarios and gathering evidence like they would at a real scene. They're trying to find out who actually committed that crime like they would at a real scene. So this gives them an opportunity to do that," Shaw says.