This exercise has been running in this location since before the inception of Special Forces. I am hardpressed to believe that the police officer was not aware that an exercise was in progress. If that is the case, then there was a monumental screwup in communications. But I do not believe that it was the fault of the SF candidates, who clearly thought they were still role-playing.
The sheriff and the deputy are both lying. The Moore County Sheriff has awards from SF hanging on his office wall to thank him for his help with Robin Sage,yet he tries to claim his dept was never involved with Robin Sage. These teams had been on the ground and running missions for almost two weeks,and this involves daily explosions and machine gun fire. If the sheriff and his deputies didn't think this was the result of harmless operations by the SF students,why didn't they investigate them? Don't you think MOST sheriff depts would investigate machine gun fire and explosions?
Again, I am no great admirer of cops in general. Too many of them are badge heavy arseholes. But this guy, from the reports, does not seem to have done much of anything wrong.
The spec op guys failed the test because they lacked judgement. They let the cop see the gun, then lacked the good sense to surrender and ID themselves. Their excuse that they thought he was part of the FX sounds self serving to me.
Did the snake eaters and their superiors commit some great evil? No, they just fxxxed up. So they pay the price, dead, wounded and ended careers.