FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) The reenactment of a 2018 mass shooting at a Florida high school will take place early next month as part of a civil lawsuit and will use live ammunition with a bullet safety device, a judge was told Thursday.

Circuit Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips endorsed an agreement reached by attorneys for victims families and former Broward Deputy Scot Peterson to conduct the reenactment Aug. 4 at a three-story classroom building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

A ballistics expert for the families, former FBI agent Bruce Koenig, testified that live rounds make a different sound than blanks. A key issue in the lawsuit is what Peterson could hear during the shooting on Valentines Day 2018, in which 17 people died and 17 more were wounded with an AR-15-style rifle.

You want to imitate the situation as close as possible, Koenig said. Blanks, he added, are almost as loud, but there definitely is a difference.