Police Skills  Sharpened In Tactical Training

By Andrew Gorosko

To sharpen their rapid decisionmaking skills through realistic training scenarios, town police officers recently underwent “simunitions” training outdoors near Canaan House at Fairfield Hills.

Police Lieutenant Christopher Vanghele, who oversees police department training, said that the instructional program is intended to provide realistic situations to prepare police to make good decisions in emergency situations.

“Simunitions” is a trademarked name for a type of training ammunition that is fired through modified police weapons. When a round of the special ammunition strikes an object, it creates a colored soapy mark on it to show the point of impact.

The rounds fired from the training handguns are not lethal, but police wear protective equipment such as a full faceguard during the training. Police use a modified Glock 9 mm pistol in the training, which is similar to the Glock .45-caliber pistol that they carry while on duty.

Lt Vanghele said that about 40 police officers received the simunitions training. Police seek to conduct such instructional projects annually to keep their personnel well trained, he said, adding that typically, police practice in and around abandoned buildings in order to have realistic settings.

In the recent project, police did almost all of their training outdoors near Canaan House. Most of the scenarios were presented to single police officers who were tested on their responses to various simulated emergencies, he said. The lieutenant declined to describe any specific scenarios which were used.

The length of a given scenario is variable based upon the nature of the incident being simulated. A typical training incident lasts about three minutes, he said.

Police instructors provide coaching to the participants on how best to respond to the scenarios presented to them, the lieutenant said, and then the police officers are debriefed following the training exercise.

Lt Vanghele compared the use of simunitions equipment to paintball, but with more physical impact than is created by the impact of paintball rounds.

The simunitions exercises provide the most realistic emergency-situation training available for police, providing them with valuable instruction in handling emergency incidents, he said.

While taking part, the police officers are dressed in their full uniforms and equipped with portable radios to simulate the physical conditions under which they would encounter in actual emergencies.

Lt Vanghele said that the scenarios presented to police during the training project were different than the scenarios they encountered in past training.