To give academy students a better insight into what it actually means to be a police officer and make decisions under stress, the Arlington Police Department recently purchased a firearms training simulator.

This simulator was determined to be a significant addition to the AISD Dan Dipert Career and Technical Center, and cost around $95,000. According to the Arlington Police Chief Will Johnson, the physical training exercises are typically labor intensive and can’t be done too often.

This amazing piece of technology, however, can provide training 24/7 to up to four people at once. The simulator is called Ti Training Corp TL-102, and it’s a high-definition, ultra-wide screen that transforms a 32-foot-wide wall into dangerous scenarios where the young police officers can test their skills.

The Chief further explained that the primary purpose of this simulator is to teach students to try to find non-lethal options when they are making decisions under enormous pressure. “Their job can be dangerous at times. We also want to equip them with the skills to de-escalate in all instances that they can to avoid the use of force”; said the Chief.

Ti Training Corp TL-102 provides 600 scenarios, and the scenarios will be updated every year. In those scenarios, students can find themselves in a slew of different kinds of situations from school shootings to answering domestic violence calls. Their response will trigger a reaction chain that will lead to the actual outcome.

“Reality based training has proven to provide the greatest opportunity for officers to enhance their decision-making skills under stressful conditions and improve the likelihood for successful outcomes. This technology will expand our current reality-based training efforts while also serving as a tool to begin to develop the decision-making skills of our potential future employees through our Hometown Recruiting Program with AISD”; stated Chief Johnson.