LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- High-profile, police-involved shootings in Louisville and across the country have led to questions and concerns about officer training.
So several local police departments are using a realistic tool to help train officers and educate the public about the use of deadly force. It involves a simulator, allowing officers to use realistic guns and face real-life situations with unpredictable outcomes.
St. Matthews Police is one of the latest departments using the simulators to train officers on the use of force and de-escalation.
During one scenario, Detective Mark Richardson, a firearms instructor with St. Matthews Police, responds to a domestic violence call and encounters a couple involved in a physical confrontation.
"A lot of these come from real-life scenarios," Richardson said. "Some of them have actual real-life videos of incidents that occurred after the training scenario."
That includes video from a doorbell camera of a suspect taking a shot at a deputy at point-blank range in Warren County, Ohio, last year.
"You can see what happened in that real-life scenario and what we can take from that and make better policies and practices that we do," Richardson said.
After each encounter, Richardson delves into what happened and how the officers responded.
"After each scenario, we'll go through and critique what they did," he said. "And we'll say, Hey, you did this well, or maybe we could do this better.'
"Again, it's not the way, but it is a way. There are multiple ways of handling the scenario properly. So we want to make sure they understand what they did right and maybe things that they can improve on."
Every officer on the St. Matthews Police Department is required to go through the training. Richardson has also trained officers from three smaller police departments, and the simulator has been used to help educate and get feedback from the public.
"They start to understand us a little bit more on why we do some of the things we do, some of the things we're limited to, that we as police, we are limited in doing and how we responded to certain situations," St. Matthews Officer Troy Armstrong said. "Some of the things we're limited to, that we as police, we are limited in doing and how and why we respond to certain situations."
"They get a different opinion of it because they see it through our eyes," Richardson added. "It makes your heart rate go up. Makes your palms get sweaty."
It may be a simulator, but police believe it's close enough to the real thing to save lives.
"It just gives you more repetitions on working a scenario and being more comfortable when you encounter something," Richardson said. "Now, maybe it's not the first time you've encountered it. You've encountered it in training, so you're more comfortable dealing with it."
Richardson said training is a crucial part of being a police officer.
"Training is one of the things that you cannot ever have enough of," he said. "The more trained you are, the better off you are when you're dealing with people on the street."
And police said that training could help avoid deadly confrontations.
"Obviously, it's always to help preserve life," Richardson said. "But it's to give officers training on multiple aspects of their job. Ultimately, at the end of the day, the suspect is the one who makes us make a decision. We don't make the decision on our own. The suspect does when they fail to follow commands, do what we ask them to do or stop doing what they're doing."
Every year, the simulator is updated with real-life scenarios and brought back for training.
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