Simulation trains police for real life

By Angie Tyson, Wise County Messenger, Texas

Published Sunday, August 14, 2005

HURST, TV – When the lights are on, the room at the Hurst Police Department looks barren. The walls and ceiling are white, and two wooden elbow-high podiums sit on a floor covered with industrial carpet. There are tables near the back wall, one holding a computer and monitors.

When the lights are off, the room becomes a world where bad guys appear at the click of a key and a police officer’s wits are tested to the limit.

This is the Hurst police department’s PRISm training room, a system that projects dramatic video footage simulating crime scenarios to test police officers’ judgment on the use of deadly force.

Bridgeport Police Chief Randy Singleton took two officers to train Monday at the Hurst facility. Other Bridgeport officers trained in a mobile facility in Hudson Oaks two weeks earlier. Singleton has a special affinity for the Hurst system — he helped them get it in 1999 when he was an assistant chief at the city.

“This training is so far advanced over the traditional police officer’s training,” Singleton said.

A video crime scenario is projected on the screen at the end of the room. The officer in training stands about 20 feet from the wall, centered between the two wooden structures that can serve as the officer’s cover. The trainer manning the computer can change the course of the scenario’s events depending upon the officer’s actions. Suspects can surrender or attack, and if they begin shooting, “bullets” begin firing at 300 feet per second from a ceiling mounted “cannon” loaded with small nylon balls.

“This is as real as it gets,” said Richard Winstanley, assistant chief of police in Hurst who administered the training to the Bridgeport officers.

Winstanley led Bridgeport officer James Mayo through a series of warm-up drills, allowing him to get used to the one-of-a-kind training pistol, modified to shoot high velocity, air-powered, bullet-like cylinders.

Mayo’s first scenario filled the screen. A drunk in an alley-way covered the wall like a belligerent, life-size video game character. The drunk went from annoying to deadly, coming around a dumpster and rushing the officer with a knife.

“You have to remember to verbalize,” Winstanley said, reminding Mayo to identify himself as police and give clear instructions.

Officer Mayo’s confidence increased as the awkwardness of talking to a movie screen decreased. He went through other scenarios with the outcomes reflecting his reaction to the situation. The training sequences are videoed for a sort of “picture-in-picture” review after the scenario.

“I will definitely take something away from the training,” Mayo said, saying he’d like to go through the simulation again now that he knows what to expect.

The more than 400 scenarios available through the training help officers identify a suspect’s “means, motive and opportunity” for violence to help determine how to keep a situation from escalating, or handle it if it does.”

Sgt. Bobby Arriola of the Bridgeport police department credits Chief Singleton with offering the state-of-the-art training to the Bridgeport officers.

“I’m walking away today with the same thing I did two weeks ago,” Arriola said. “It all has to do with judgment, assessing the situation quickly and figuring out what the best alternative is to defuse the situation.”

“We try to do a lot of training, a lot of verbalization, a lot of use of force, a lot of discussion,” Winstanley said. “You’ve got to reason through this and we can escalate or de-escalate if they’re not doing their training.”

Winstanley stressed throughout the training that an officer must be able to justify use of force, questioning the trainees at length after each session. He said a successful mission ends as peacefully as possible.

“If we can resolve the situation with the least amount of use of force (it is a success,)” Winstanley said.

The Bridgeport Police Department currently has 14 officers. With Monday’s training they have all been through the PRISM training.
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