MT. PLEASANT — Wednesday, May 10, Mt. Pleasant City Council approved the purchase of a virtual reality training package for the city police department.
According to a news release from the department, “The program will have numerous realistic situations that will give officers the ability to better prepare for high pressure situations. It will be a safer training as it does not involve real weapons or physical contact.”
“Some of the council members have experienced this,” Mayor Steve Brimhall said. “They’re not very good at it.”
“It was interesting,” Council member Bob Griffith commented. Well, I heard you weren’t so good at it.
“We have a strange phenomenon,” Brimhall said. “Young people talk with their phones instead of their voices. So this virtual training helps them in situations that they get into, help them chosen what to say, how they should react under certain situations.”
“We got a couple police officers retiring here, have been here a long, long time, and so this is something that we thought we really needed,” Brimhall said.
Police Chief Lyle Murray agreed with Brimhall’s sentiment saying that the communication aspect of this particular virtual reality training is crucial to adequately prepare individuals going into these situations.
“It will have the standard shoot/no shoot simulations on it, but more importantly, will feature dangerous situations where communication skills are utilized,” a news release from the police department stated. “De-Escalation training begins with effective communication skills. In today’s society, we are seeing a change in people being able to communicate effectively so this will be vital to our future.”
Additionally, the Mt. Pleasant Police Department looks forward to working with other local law enforcement agencies to extend the reach of this training and “make everyone better.”
“This training can be done in a much shorter time constraint than ‘normal scenario based’ training,” Mt. Pleasant Police Department states. “This will cut down on costs and equipment.”
“Tools make the platform nimble and responsive in real time,” the company, Streets Smarts Virtual Reality (SSVR), website states. “Academic studies have demonstrated that training on SSVR mirrors real-life stressors, preparing your officers to operate under duress in the field.”
According to the SSVR website, this training will instruct individuals in scenarios including de-escalation, domestic violence, active shooter, high-risk entry, firearms training, emotional intelligence, and many others.
The Police Iowa Colony also uses SSVR reality training.
The police department will purchase virtual reality training through SSVR thanks to funds from American Rescue Funds and donations to the department.
“The Mt. Pleasant PD would like to thank the City Council, Walmart Store, Walmart Distribution, BNSF, Street Smarts Virtual Reality, and the private donors who asked not to be named,” Mt. Pleasant Police Department said.
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