Brown County Law Enforcement are taking time this week to obtain “Response to Resistance” training from the Texas Association of Counties using an interactive simulator, which features some real life situations. These classes began on Tuesday and will conclude on Thursday. Brownwood Police Department, Early Police Department and Brown County Sheriff’s Office participated in the training.
Officers are getting some classroom hours of training on civil rights, legal issues and time actively using the simulator to hone their decision making skills. According to Darren Jackson, Law Enforcement Consultant and one of the instructors of the class, the simulator offers 600 scenarios for every type of law enforcement agency throughout the state. Law enforcement consultant David Whitis also instructed during the training.Using a projection on an interactive screen, officers train using CO2 weapons of guns that are identical to Glock pistols, OC pepper spray and X26 tasers. The training features situations to train officers in making decisions that will escalate or de-escalate use of force. The program will react to the officer’s response.
“Our goal is to develop communication skills to de-escalate situations,” explained Whitis. “The last thing we want is to have an officer or suspect injured.”
Jackson explained that officers experience a lot of emotional distress and face split second decisions in many situations, sometimes on a daily basis.
“During the simulator scenarios of patrol, domestic disturbances, dealing with disturbed people or MHMR persons and an active shooter situation, the officer encounters a suspect and tries to de-escalate the situation using verbal command and command presence,” explained Jackson. “If the violators are noncompliant, then they can escalate using less lethal options or in some cases using more lethal actions and then justify their actions to us.”
According to Jackson, the main goal in the training is to decrease violator injuries and to protect officers.
“At this time law enforcement is a tough profession to be in, we are always being scrutinized. And that is fine with us, we should be held accountable,” Jackson stated. “We want to make sure when we are out there serving, we want to respond in the most professional manner possible.”
With the recent tragic events in law enforcement, Jackson stated, “It is hard, we have got a difficult job balancing the need for enforcement with everybody’s rights with respect and dignity. We are all out there doing the best job we can.”
Brown County Sheriff George Caldwell stated that he was glad his agency could bring the training to Brown County.
“This is an excellent training for our officers,” said Caldwell. “Officers have to make split decisions, maybe not every day, but having a hands-on training with the simulator just helps them. It’s also good for the public to see they are getting some training.”
Four retired sheriff’s make up the Texas Association of Counties’ team of trainers, each having 30+ years of experience as law enforcement officers. The Response to Resistance training is a new program and was introduced to Texas law enforcement just three months ago. TAC assists Texas County governments with issues of human resources, safety, risk pool (insurance), a lobbying group, and a legal team.
Pictured above and below Brown County Sheriff’s deputies using the simulator, weapons used and other officers during the training.
Weapons used with simulator
