State-of-the-art training simulator puts Colorado Springs police officers through real life scenarios

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO)-- A new training simulator at the Colorado Springs Police Department Academy put officers in high-stress, realistic scenarios to emphasize de-escalation techniques and provide representative experiences to prepare officers for real-life situations.

In the fall of 2019, the Police Foundation of Colorado Springs raised more than $147,000 to replace the department's old system.

"They’re the one percent of people that go into the line of fire and the scary situations. We’re the 99% running away from it, so whatever we can do to support them that’s why we’re here," said Nicole Magic, the president of the Police Foundation of Colorado Springs.

The simulator features four rooms that can show 1,000 different scenarios. There are cameras inside that allow officers on the outside to watch, playback, and go over how they performed.

"There’s a lot of scenarios for de-escalation and verbal communication that we really enjoy using with the recruits and incumbent officers. We have force-on-force scenarios that we put everybody through," said Lt. Korey Hutchison, director of the Colorado Springs Police Department Academy.

The hope is to get officers ready for anything they encounter out in the streets.

"Especially with de-escalation, so they can see that talking to people and just different types of verbiage they use can have an effect on certain situations affect the outcome," said Lt. Hutchison.

The department is working on getting all 700 incumbent officers through the training.