Midwest City unveils ‘decisionmaking’ simulator
MIDWEST CITY — The first shot grazes his ear, but the second drops the shooter. As he falls, my third shot goes over the top of his head, but the final one hits him in the face once more.
The warehouse scene falls away and is replaced with the words “ALL STOP!” in deep red. There are no calls for paramedics or police supervisors, because the felled body is only as real as the bullets fired.
The warehouse is one of about 150 scenarios included in the Midwest City Police Department’s new VirTra simulator, a $150,000 piece of hardware purchased with a hospital authority grant. I was invited to go through a training session.
The warehouse is the first scenario I’m given. When I’m thrust into the action, there already is a victim on the ground. Another bystander comes around the
corner, followed quickly by the gunman at whom I fire four rapid shots.
“It’s basically a decision-making simulator. We don’t always shoot,” said Capt. Jerry Kennedy, one of the officers who supervises in-service training for police officers in the 180-degree virtual environment.
The pistol, a Glock 9 mm fitted with CO2 cartridges, is a modified version of an actual service weapon. While the gun recoils when the trigger is pulled and shots ring out over the system’s speakers, the barrel fires only lasers at environments projected onto a triptych of panels.
A Taser and can of pepper spray also are modified with lasers to provide the officer with multiple tools with which to respond to the situation at hand.
The heft of the pistol and the peripheral vision filled with high-quality video help trick the mind into thinking the scenario is real.
“Their mind says ‘Hey, you’ve done this before,’ and they’ll hopefully make better decisions and control their stress better,” Kennedy said.
Your body reacts instinctively, heart rate and perspiration increasing with the stress. As a person, you may never forget that you’re in a simulated environment, but your brain knows no better.
In the second scenario, the screen remains dark while a dispatcher’s voice fills the room. A man has just been fired from his job, but is in the office parking lot and refuses to leave. A co-worker says a few words upon arrival, but disappears into the office building.
It takes a few seconds to register that the man inside the pickup’s tinted cab is armed, and the gun is pointed at his head. The voice commands begin.
“If I’m giving good voice commands or I’m interacting the way I’m supposed to, he can actually de-escalate it while the scenario is going on or he can increase it. There’s several outcomes we can do on many of these scenarios depending on how well the officer is responding,” Kennedy said.
The man eventually steps from the vehicle, and I’m hoping against hope that shouting at the man will eventually prompt him to drop the weapon. He slowly walks away and into the office building at my gunpoint. I give up hope before the scenario ends, forgetting about the Taser in my pocket.
The man disappears through the glass doors, and the sound of gunshots comes from inside the building. My hesitation and inaction just cost an untold number of lives.
I vow not to make the same mistake twice.
The third scenario opens on a noise complaint outside a two-car garage. A man sits behind a motorcycle as I arrive, agitated and swearing about my presence. He picks up a hammer, and I order him to drop it.
The door to the house opens and a woman appears in the door frame, screaming and shouting at me. I order her to calm down and go back inside the house. Eventually she complies.
But she returns, and my voice raises in volume and my commands are more pointed.
My attention is diverted, but not completely. Out of the corner of my eye, I’m noticing a shift in body language from the man. He steps toward her and then walks back behind the bike. He turns his back to me, then whips around with his hands in a position that indicates he’s holding a long gun.
But that doesn’t fully register until well after I’ve opened fire on the man.
After a few moments my mind starts to fill in the blanks and why I perceived that threat, his hand placement and the shape of the gun he was holding slowly forming in my mind’s eye like a developing Polaroid.
The final scenario opens to a man wearing a plastic trash bag in a park, with a barking German shepherd beside him as he stands in front of a concrete park bench.
It takes a second for me to realize that the dog is leashed to a wooden park bench, and I keep my eyes on the man, who is still talking when he turns his back. When he does an about face, he’s holding a machete.
I glance at his feet to make sure he’s not closing the gap before quickly pulling my Taser, getting a bead on the man and deploying the imaginary barbs. I hesitate only as long as it takes to aim and pull the trigger, and he immediately drops in apparent agony.
I’m admittedly pretty proud of my flawless execution in three out of four scenarios, but while a civilian, I didn’t come entirely unprepared.
The first time I took on a shooting simulator, in the summer of 2012, I didn’t fare so well. I shot a man with a stapler, missed my target a number of times and made other errors. All under the watchful eyes of Oklahoma City police training staff.
Even the Taser is a semi-familiar fit to my hand, having been taught how to use one on the mats of the city’s training facility. The voice of Oklahoma City police trainer Lt. Blake Webster rings through my head, telling me to “split the belt” as I’m flipping on the Taser and lifting to fire.
Even my voice commands aren’t my idea, but rather gleaned from years of watching body-worn camera footage of officers on the job and witnessing police tactics while riding along with officers and deputies.
A little practice goes a long way, even with the benefit of a controlled environment and imaginary people, or “subjects” in police parlance.
But while falling asleep that night, I keep replaying the scene with the apparently suicidal man who turns homicidal because I didn’t stop him.
It continues to haunt me the next night. And the next night, and it was just a training exercise.