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NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ― For a police officer, it's a succession of worst-case scenarios: a motorist who slams his car into reverse during a traffic stop, a drunken woman who refuses to drop a knife, a man wielding a rifle outside a daycare center.

This time, the situations aren't real. They are interactive, computer-controlled images displayed on a large movie screen by the New York Police Department, used to train officers on how to handle life-and-death situations on the street.

Trainees are told, "You can't take away a mistake when you use a firearm," said Darrell Corti, an instructor at the department's shooting range in the Bronx. "You can't call it back. They are responsible for every round they fire."

Corti spoke on Friday to a pack of reporters, photographers and camera crews invited to the range so the department could demonstrate some of its weapons training procedures. Officials offered the show-and-tell amid persistent questions about the killing of an unarmed man in a hail of 50 police bullets.

Five officers using semiautomatic pistols fired the 50 rounds while trying to stop a car on Nov. 25 outside a topless bar in Queens, killing the driver, Sean Bell, and injuring two of his friends. Police, who were conducting an undercover operation at the bar, have said they suspected the men were going to retrieve a gun to settle a dispute, but no weapon was recovered.

The shooting involving three black victims and officers who were black and white sparked community outrage and prompted a grand jury investigation to determine whether the officers should face criminal charges. The officers were put on leave pending the outcome.

Critics questioned why the officers fired at all, and when they did, why they used such force. In response, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly formed a special committee to study the NYPD's undercover operations and commissioned the Rand Corp. research group to review its weapons training programs.

During the media session at the range, police sought to drive home the point that officers are often forced to make snap decisions -- they say the average shooting incident lasts less than four seconds -- under highly stressful conditions.

The instructors said recruits are repeatedly cautioned to be aware of their surroundings and to try to take cover and assess the situation before opening fire. Once the shooting starts, officers are trained to "shoot to stop" by firing at the target's "center mass" or torso.

Aside from standard target practice, officers are trained in tactics in a darkened room featuring a simulator -- essentially a life-size video game -- that recreates real-life situations in which officers were killed. Trainees fire fake guns at the screen showing walking and talking images of armed suspects, all generated by a computer that also tracks the path of each bullet.

Trainees who shout commands to halt while taking cover behind barrels in the room sometimes are rewarded by seeing the suspect retreat. But there also can be surprise attacks by an unseen second suspect or by a fallen suspect who pops back up with a hidden gun.

Journalists who were put through the drills in teams of four recorded mixed results: Some hit the suspects dead on. Other shots were sprayed way off-target.

Afterward, some of the amateur shooters said they fired only because their colleagues did; others had no idea how many rounds they fired -- responses the instructors said mirrored those of real officers.

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)