Filling Law Enforcement Training Gaps

Group Editor Marty Kauchak files this first in a series of reports on training shortfalls in law enforcement agencies – and how ever-more capable learning technologies are supporting these organizations’ training enterprises.

The long 2020 summer and Fall seasons of protests and milder incidents of civil unrest in many US cities are in the historical record. The scale and scope of US law enforcement responses across the nation in that era are emerging in a trove of official reports and remain available in electronic- and print media resources. The outcomes from last year’s many long weeks of demonstrations include the emergence of identified gaps and deficiencies in police department training. Some of these training readiness challenges are applicable to other law enforcement tasks, from a routine traffic stop to a report of a burglary in progress. SCT examines these contemporary police department training challenges through the lens of apolitical, impartial analysis – a huge challenge, even with the benefit of publishing these issues with hindsight in March 2021. Indeed, missed training opportunities and the absence of skillsets from police officers responding to the demonstrations are noted in police departments’ and cities’ after-action reports still being released, and are highlighted in several ongoing legal cases around the US.

Quicklook: One Report’s Findings on Training Readiness

The Independent Examination of the Los Angeles Police Department 2020 Protest Response is one authoritative summary of a representative department’s activities in the frenetic summer of 2020. Of relevance to SCT, the Review Team found deficiencies in areas that impacted the LA Police Department’s actions during the protests, six of which include: planning; command and control; public order policing; less lethal tools; mass arrests; and preparedness and training.

Mirroring a high-level policy document in a US military organization, this report asserted, “Preparedness demands that an organization plan, organize, train, exercise, and evaluate performance before any event actually occurs,” and continued, “As such, training and exercising that at one time had been implemented should have been sustained within the Department over the years, but were not.”

The report further focused on a number of LAPD training readiness matters. In one instance, the department’s non-lethal 40mm training was termed “problematic.” In another readiness area, the report further noted, “Public order policing, also known as crowd management/crowd control, is complex in the 21st Century.” In an opinion certain to resonate with operators in adjacent high-risk sectors, the report noted, “Skills to manage public order are perishable [author’s emphasis] and diminish [author’s further emphasis] over time if they are not maintained. The skills necessary to manage a complex and dynamic situation must be refreshed frequently.” A third training readiness gap was noted, “When the Department did begin to set up a command post, on Friday, May 29, the assigned personnel did not have the experience or training to execute what needed to be done to successfully run a command post.”

Training technology products and systems are providing police officers and units, in and beyond LAPD, opportunities to learn and enhance their skillsets through their training continua. Two randomly selected S&T industry suppliers’ marksmanship training products, and their potential to enhance specific police officer skill sets, are featured below. A number of intersecting trends can be gleaned from these products. As learning audiences increasingly immerse themselves in virtual reality (VR)-based environments, they are completing increasingly complex and higher-fidelity scenarios – for starters.

Two Technology Enhancers

Marwan Kodeih, Co-Founder and CTO of SURVIVR, told SCT that his company provides law enforcement agencies with a virtual reality training simulator that is highly interactive, responsive, and realistic. The executive explained, “Virtual reality and high-quality graphics allow us to closely mirror real situations that officers would face on the streets. SURVIVR supports multiple-users within the same scenario as officers are often called upon to work in pairs or small groups to address specific situations. We replicate all weapons to match the agency's standard-issue weapons to help build muscle memory and avoid ‘training scars.’ Also, SURVIVR gives the training instructors full control of the scenario, suspects, and characters therein that each scenario has a near-infinite number of outcomes. We believe these factors make our simulator the most realistic on the market.”

VR, augmented- and mixed reality (AR and MR)-based training products are increasingly familiar to followers of SCT’s companion editorial content, MS&T and defence and CAT and civil aviation. To gain another community datum point, the executive was asked, “Why a VR training solution and not augmented or mixed reality?” Kodeih replied, “Virtual reality technology is ahead of augmented or mixed reality. For example, AR creates a very narrow field of vision, almost like tunnel vision, which isn't very immersive and distracts away from the purposes we are training. It is paramount that officers in training feel entirely immersed for the training to be effective.”

Of note, SURVIVR uses the HTC Vive system.

Given the dynamics in contemporary policing missions – beyond peaceful demonstrations, to include defeating the active shooter and other challenges – scenario development remains a key marksmanship product underpinning. The company executive noted there are several components to understand about SURVIVR’s training platform. First, the company’s scenarios come from officers’ real-world incidents, and these often come from the agencies that use SURVIVR.

“Trainers using SURVIVR can focus on different training competencies due to the level of control over the scenario,” he explained and added, “The reason for this is two-fold. First, trainers need the ability to work with each officer specifically to address their strengths and weaknesses. Second, protocol and policies tend to vary from department-to-department. We built SURVIVR with the intent to encompass de-escalation, use of force, application of the law, protocol, and critical thinking training.”

Kodeih concluded “SURVIVR is continuously adding new training environments and scenarios to keep the training content fresh and up-to-date.”

SURVIVR is used by several law enforcement agencies across the country, including municipal police (one above), federal agencies, and US Air Force Security Forces squadrons. Image credit: SURVIVR.

In another instance of common baseline learning technologies migrating among high-risk training enterprises, SURVIVR is used by several law enforcement agencies across the country, including municipal police, federal agencies, and US Air Force Security Forces squadrons. This trend is again seen in the VR-DT product discussed next.

InVeris Training Solutions further expanded the technology envelope for this sector with the launch of its new advanced training solution VR-DT (Virtual Reality Decisions and Tactics, or “Verdict”). The system uses immersive VR technology for training de-escalation of force in a wide variety of vital, real-world situations. The Suwanee, Georgia (US)-based company views VR-DT as an important additional training solution in its portfolio, supplementing multi-screen, wrap-around systems.

In a brief, wide-ranging follow-up to the above announcement of earlier this month, Eric Perez, the company’s director of virtual systems sales, provided another important datum point on the law enforcement community’s increasing awareness and interest in VR training solutions.

The US Marine Corps veteran told SCT this 3 March, that Verdict’s civilian law enforcement launch customer, California’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards (CA POST), said it was aware, that while VR technology is ever changing, its current maturity allowed the organization to apply VR for its training requirements. To point, “They wanted to put an officer into an immersive environment, and potentially put another officer inside the same immersive environment. We want them to interact in that immersive environment and be able to use everything they have ‘on their belt” – potentially firing their weapon, using their voice and all the things they have at their disposal,” Perez explained.

As InVeris also considers augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR)-based solutions for its customers, Perez noted for this contract, “It was easier to create the environment for what we saw with VR. We needed to create an environment that would be typical for US law enforcement – ‘Anytown USA’ – and create all of those things,” and added, “AR didn’t give us that, because you would have to find those locations and put trainees in those locations. MR needs to have some interaction with virtual reality. That would require you to have a dedicated room. VR can be used in a space for law enforcement where the customer may have a room with its FATS/InVeris system, or even a classroom without disrupting any other activity.”

While the current VR-DT launch platform supports one to two-person training scenarios, InVeris is eyeing scalability to provide networked training events – with multiple users. InVeris is supplying 100 scenarios with branching options, plus 10 customer-mandated ones, for the CA POST contract. An embedded scenario authoring tool permits the customer to insert additional fidelity – non-player characters, voice overs, others – into Verdict scenarios.

While InVeris has selected the HTC Vive Pro Virtual Reality Headset for this VR-DT customer, “That doesn’t mean we’re tied into that one,” the InVeris executive said. “We’re always looking at new headsets and new technologies. The plan is, as we continue to grow VR-DT for the next upgrade, we’ll move a lot of the content into the newer headsets.” Further, the company is also looking to increase the training audience’s “toolkit” with VR-DT. Current trainees in the launch customer’s training enterprise will be able to use simulated pistols, rifles, shotguns, batons, tasers, OC (Oleoresin Capsicum) sprays and flashlights, but “the plan is for anyone who is using our existing wireless BlueFire weapons inside the VR-DT system or in another, actual InVeris system,” Perez concluded.

VR-DT has also been sold to the US Marine Corps law enforcement community. Relevant to SCT’s global readership, Perez, concluded InVeris has “quite a few”, unspecified efforts with VR-DT occurring in the international market.

More Enabling Technologies

The SURVIVR and Verdict products highlighted in this training community review, are representative of the increasingly capable learning technologies being delivered by S&T companies to this the high-risk law enforcement sector. Follow-on articles will focus on other products and systems being used by individual police officers and their units.