LYNCHBURG, Va. – Violent crime is on the rise in Lynchburg, and the police department is using special technology to try and prevent officer-involved shootings.
With a quick crash course, LPD put 10 News reporter Tim Harfmann through their “firearms training simulator.”
“The simulator is a means for us to put officers in real-life scenarios, almost like a video screen,” said Anthony Martin, the LPD’s training coordinator.
But the video screen is not a videogame.
The department uses it to evaluate an officer’s ability to make good judgment.
“Law enforcement encounters situations that happen extremely fast. The situations are tense, uncertain, they’re rapidly evolving, and they have to make decisions very fast,” said Martin.
Projecting the perpetrators on the screen, you get a sense of what officers go through.
In one scenario, Harfmann chased down a potential intruder, who rounded a corner ready to shoot.
In another, he conducted a traffic stop, where the driver stepped out of the vehicle and pulled out his wallet, testing Harfmann’s resistance to pulling the trigger.
The technology includes thousands of scenarios and outcomes.
Martin says LPD purchased the technology in 2019, and every officer goes through the training once or twice a year, regardless of how long they’ve been on the force.
They’re also trained to use less-lethal weapons, like a taser and pepper spray.
“The more times that we can put them in situations in training, where they have to make those very quick decisions, the better they’ll be able to respond in the real-life encounter that happens on the street,” said Martin.