Because of course.

During a Manchester police training exercise, authorities recreated a scenario in which a man pretended to be an Islamic extremist who shouted “allahu akbar” before fireworks went off, simulating a bomb vest going off. Police then engaged in a mock firefight with terrorists as actors playing the victims wore makeup and called for help. The exercise consisted of around 800 people.

All things considered, this is a smart thing to do, seeing as how Islamic terror is a very real threat that has killed hundreds of people.

But enter the activists, who don’t seem to care that people are killed constantly by the radicals and would much rather police be less prepared for these situations because someone might think less of the Islamic community for it.

I don’t think I need to point out that the Islamic community makes people think less of the Islamic community, and these mock situations are there to help authorities navigate a danger that people are already well aware of.

Dr Erinma Bell, for instance, didn’t appreciate the use of the word “Muslim terrorist” and said, “a terrorist can be anyone” and “we need to move away from stereotypes”.

In this case, a stereotype exists for a very solid reason. Islamic terror is not a rare sight that happens once in 100 blue moons. It’s a constant threat that some people suffer from daily. I find the activist’s offense to be rather insulting to those who have died during these attacks, such as the Paris attacks which took the lives of over 130 people. That police are ready and able to handle threats such as these quickly and efficiently may see some people return home to their families.

But the response by Manchester police was almost as ridiculous as the outrage, as chief constable Garry Shewan actually issued an apology for the exercise.

“It is a necessity for agencies including the police to train and prepare using exercises such as this, so that we would be in the best possible position to respond in the event that the unthinkable happened and an attack took place.

“The scenario for this exercise is based on an attack by an extremist Daesh-style organisation and the scenario writers have centred the circumstances around previous similar attacks of this nature, mirroring details of past events to make the situation as real life as possible for all of those involved.

“However, on reflection we acknowledge that it was unacceptable to use this religious phrase immediately before the mock suicide bombing, which so vocally linked this exercise with Islam. We recognise and apologise for the offence that this has caused.”

This was a foolish move on behalf of the Manchester police force. People’s feelings are worth a lot less than people’s lives, and they should be prepared to face a very real threat with a high potential of occurring.

In fact, in back to back news segments, commentators went from talking about the Manchester exercise, to talking about a knife attack from a gunman who shouted – of all things – “allahu akbar” before carrying out his attack. Officials say he was mentally disturbed, and this may be true, but this after ISIS threatened Germany with attacks, and encouraged believers to carry out attacks of their own.

“Stereotypes.”