Photo by Deb Gau Law enforcement officers from the BLRR Emergency Response Unit position themselves outside the former C&N Game Room Outlet building on East College Drive during a Thursday training exercise. Earlier, the ERU had used a vehicle-mounted tool to knock out a window in the building.

MARSHALL — The cluster of patrol cars, emergency vehicles and law enforcement officers gathered off of East College Drive might have looked serious.

But there wasn’t any danger to the public — members of the Brown, Lyon, Redwood and Renville (BLRR) Emergency Response Unit were conducting training exercises in a vacant building.

“Today, we’re working with our negotiators,” said ERU team commander Adam Connor.

In one training scenario Thursday morning, the ERU practiced responding to a hostage situation. The negotiators communicated with actors playing the roles of hostages and suspects inside the building, while tactical responders were positioned outside.

By the end of the exercise, people playing hostages had been safely released from the building, while other actors surrendered to the ERU.

The ERU responds to high-risk law enforcement situations in Brown, Lyon, Redwood and Renville Counties. The unit has members from each of the four participating counties, as well as cities like Marshall, Redwood Falls and New Ulm, Connor said. A team of negotiators and a crisis response team were also taking part in Thursday’s training.

The ERU was using the former C&N Game Room Outlet building along East College Drive as a training site. Earlier this spring, Chet Lockwood had offered the ERU the chance to use the property for training, ERU members said.

“Chet allowing us to use this building is huge,” Connor said. “A building like this works perfectly.”

Connor said the old C&N building included both the business space on the lower level, and apartments on the upper level. This allowed the ERU to split into groups to do different training drills.

In addition to the negotiation exercise, ERU members also got to practice breaching doors and windows on Thursday. The unit even got an opportunity to knock out a window in the building using a vehicle-mounted breaching tool.

The training site’s location near a busy street in Marshall made it pretty visible to passers-by. However, Connor said the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office and Marshall Police both put out notifications on social media to help inform the public that the ERU training would be taking place.