{"id":35090,"date":"2023-03-22T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T16:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/police-academy-in-mancos-unveils-new-virtual-reality-training-simulator\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:22:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:22:57","slug":"police-academy-in-mancos-unveils-new-virtual-reality-training-simulator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/police-academy-in-mancos-unveils-new-virtual-reality-training-simulator\/","title":{"rendered":"Police academy in Mancos unveils new virtual reality training simulator"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Matt
Matt Purkat, undersheriff with the Dolores County Sheriff\u2019s Office, wears the Apex Officer virtual reality simulator headset at the Southwest Regional Law Enforcement Academy in Mancos. The simulator is the latest training tool for cadets and local law enforcement agencies. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

MANCOS \u2013 Visualize a police officer responding to call of a man acting in a menacing manner in a nice tree-lined neighborhood with manicured lawns and boxy two-story homes.<\/p>\n

When Sgt. Angelo Martinez of the Cortez Police Department arrives on scene the suspect, whose name is Randy, stands in the driveway of one of the homes. Randy has short blond hair and a five o\u2019clock shadow. He is wearing discount-rack blue shorts with white splotches and a red tank top that reveals a paunch around his midriff.<\/p>\n

\"Brad
Brad Ray of the Mancos Police Department hands Sgt. Angelo Martinez of the Cortez Police Department a simulator handgun with a GPS tracking \u201cpuck\u201d attached to the base of the grip. The Apex Officer virtual reality simulator is the latest training tool for the Southwest Regional Law Enforcement Academy in Mancos, as well as for local law enforcement agencies. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sgt. Martinez asks Randy what is going on and if there is a problem. Randy responds belligerently by telling Martinez to get lost \u2013 that he\u2019s the problem. Things happen fast after that. Randy complies with orders to drop the knife that suddenly appears in his right hand, then raises both hands above his head. But then, without warning, his hands drop and he pulls a handgun tucked into his waistband from behind his back and draws down on Martinez.<\/p>\n

Martinez does not have to visualize the situation. He is experiencing it in the new three-dimensional virtual reality simulator at the Southwest Regional Law Enforcement Academy in Mancos. Martinez can hear virtual traffic in the distance and birds singing in the trees.<\/p>\n

The fresh-out-of-the-box Apex Officer virtual reality simulator was set up and tested for the first time by nine law enforcement professionals March 15. The simulator is the latest training tool for cadets and local law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n

Randy charges Martinez but before he can squeeze off a round, Martinez raises his handgun and fires three quick shots. Randy pitches forward and falls on his face at Martinez\u2019s feet. The simulator software breaks down the hard details afterward. Martinez\u2019s first shot was a hit, his second shot hit Randy when he was just 1 foot and 11 inches away, and the third was a headshot when Randy was just inches from reaching Martinez. The entire \u201cscenario\u201d lasted just 2 minutes and 21 seconds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be a useful tool for our local law enforcement agencies,\u201d Martinez said later. \u201cIt\u2019s going to provide officers with real-life experience without putting them actually out in the field. And they will be better equipped to handle different types of situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martinez added that he did not feel disoriented despite it being his first experience with virtual reality.<\/p>\n

The Apex Officer, which retails for $130,000 (the academy received a half-price deal), comes with a software suit that offers a multitude of scenarios with a variety of locations, suspects, behaviors and weapons. Then there is the equipment, which includes goggles, headphones and mics along with a battery backpack and \u201cpucks\u201d with GPS sensors that attach to the base of the handguns. Four base-stations set the parameters of the simulation that trainees can maneuver within.<\/p>\n

While the trainee is in the virtual world, the trainer controls the suspect and surroundings via a laptop and headset, and actually speaks for the suspect whose mouth moves with the trainer\u2019s words. The trainer also speaks to the trainee as the dispatcher, but the voice is modulated to sound different.<\/p>\n

The officers who participated in the training session teamed up as trainer and trainee while receiving instructions remotely on how to set up and operate the simulation from an Apex trainer. Five pairs trained on the simulator, through a range of surroundings, weapons and behaviors, which included a mentally unstable person with a gun who was threatening suicide in a hospital and a drunk guy in an alley who says he just needs a ride home.<\/p>\n

Having a little free-firing and free ammunition fun<\/div>\n

\"Sgt.
Sgt. Bobbie Fender of the La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office prepares to expend a serious amount of free virtual ammunition as he has a little fun in the Apex Officer \u201cgun range\u201d scenario before entering a simulation. Shannon Baker with the Sheriff\u2019s Office acts as the trainer as she runs the simulator and communicates with Fender through a headset. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The most entertaining scenario involved La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Sgt. Bobbie Fender, who while waiting in the virtual gun range (which saves on batteries) for the trainer to set up a scenario depicting a drunk casino visitor threatening people with a bottle, decided to expend copious quantities of virtual ammunition. The shots rang in the trainer\u2019s headphones.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop shooting,\u201d trainer Shannon Baker told Fender as he continued to spray more bullets than Bruce Willis in the first two Die Hard movies combined.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop shooting,\u201d she said again. But Fender only seemed to find a second wind or perhaps he was fending off a swarm of virtual killer bees that a glitch in the system had released into the virtual gun range.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you hear me?\u201d Baker asked. \u201cI can hear you,\u201d Fender responded as he blasted away unabated.<\/p>\n

\"Dolores
Dolores County Undersheriff Matt Purkat stands in the middle of the Apex Officer virtual reality simulator preparing to enter a simulation that featured a drunken man in an alleyway. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Once inside the casino simulation, Fender continued to have a little fun or perhaps establish that, as Baker joked, he is never tasked by the sheriff\u2019s Office to act as a negotiator.<\/p>\n

\u201cPut the bottle down or I\u2019ll shoot you in the face,\u201d Fender informed the female suspect. Not having witnessed Fender\u2019s warm-up, the virtual suspect refused to comply despite Fender\u2019s repeated warnings.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, Fender reverted to shooting-gallery mode quickly downing the suspect along with presumably everybody else in the casino who was not fleet of foot. The trainer informed Fender the suspect was down with the first shot but that he missed a few times before scoring hits with the last six.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to point out that I had 100% accuracy,\u201d Martinez said to Fender.<\/p>\n

Impressions from officers about the new simulator<\/div>\n

Once the fun was over the officers shared their overall opinions about the Apex simulator, which is far more advanced than the previous Milo system the officers have trained with in the past. The Milo offered prerecorded videos on a flat screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of cartoonish at first,\u201d Fender said. \u201cBut you can push past it once you\u2019re in it. It exceeded my expectations. And it\u2019s a must because it\u2019s part of the training standard we have to go through to shoot or not shoot or de-escalation use of force training.\u201d<\/p>\n

The drawbacks were the large backpack that trainees wear, which he imagines will eventually be advanced to something much smaller, as well as the GPS puck protruding from the bottom of the pistol grip \u2013 because it does not allow the gun to be holstered.<\/p>\n

Dolores County Undersheriff Matt Purkart, who stumbled on a virtual curb while dealing with the drunk in the alley, rated the system a 7 on a scale 1 to 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like Star Trek,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s another tool. I don\u2019t think it will replace any of the hard training that we do, but it will bolster it. It\u2019s realistic, but it\u2019s not reality. It\u2019s still not a replacement for real-life training because it\u2019s not real. But it\u2019s about as close as I\u2019ve seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apex Officer cost benefits<\/strong><\/div>\n

Doug Parker, director of the academy, applied for a grant to purchase the Apex Officer a year ago. It was delivered at the end of February but not taken out of the box, as per Apex instructions, until this first training session.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Pueblo Law Enforcement Academy was the first to get one and was actually the first academy in the state to get one of these,\u201d Parker said. \u201cSo Apex gave us a deal, half off, so I got it for $62,500, which was a real plus.\u201d<\/p>\n

The simulator will be available to any police agencies in the area that want to use it and those who could not make it out for the test run will be invited to come out another time, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just fits with our role as a regional academy,\u201d Parker said.<\/p>\n

While the Apex Officer is quite an improvement from the old Milo system, the \u201cgold standard\u201d is actually the $250,000 VirTra simulator which comes with an optional $4,000 a month subscription plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Apex the updates are free,\u201d Parker said. \u201cSo it\u2019s a good deal for a small academy and small agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parker said the officers involved in this first session were \u201cvery excited\u201d to come out and train on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will benefit the officers and the communities and agencies that they work for,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve all seen the bad behavior of officers (on the news) and this will help them get trained the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

gjaros@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regional law enforcement tests and learns how to use latest technology<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,1194,52],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-35090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-sheriffs-office","tag-law-enforcement"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82862,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35090\/revisions\/82862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35090"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=35090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}