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local police departments by raising money for
needed projects which aren't funded with tax dol-
lars, was contacted and began brainstorming with
local police. The foundation donates funds for
police training, programs, technology and related
expenses on behalf of the police in the county.
A local anonymous donor heard of the
county's desire for the use of force training sys-
tem and after reviewing several other proposals
for other funding needs, volunteered to pay for
the high-tech, five-screen training simulator sys-
tem in its entirety – if the county's police de-
partments would share it among all its members.
The anonymous donor provided the money, the
St. Louis County Police Department bought the
system and it was recently installed at the St.
Louis County and Municipal Police Academy,
which provides training for all officers in the
county.
The virtual reality training installed system
is fully operational today and officers from the
police academy are continuing to test it and gain
experience with it before its use is soon expand-
ed, said Cox, who is a 30-year veteran of the St.
Louis County Police Department and has served
as deputy chief since 2014.
"We had to actually take a wall out in
the academy to accommodate it," he
said. "We can't wait to start using it for
ongoing training so all the officers in
this area can train on it."
The St. Louis County experience isn't the
only way that communities can collaborate to
acquire such systems, according to law enforce-
ment experts.
ALTERNATIVE FUNDING SOURCES
Other options to buy virtual reality train-
ing systems include community partnerships
where groups of departments and municipalities
can apply for neighborhood grants, which usu-
ally come from federal and urban development
agencies. The grants, which usually total about
$10,000 each, can be combined between grant
applicants to make larger purchases together
to initiate projects, including police simulator
training technology.
Seeing it in use at the 2016 FBINAA con-
ference, which was held in St. Louis County,
allowed him to stand inside the simulator and
try it out himself that same day. His time in the
simulator left Cox with a personal mission to fig-
ure out how his department and officers could
get one to improve their own training.
The realism of the experience in replicating
what real police officers experience on the street in
high-stress crime situations is what convinced him
that the system would be beneficial to officers in
his department. After trying it himself, he stood
by and watched other FBINAA members as they
went through video simulations using the system.
"When I watched other officers go
through the simulator, I saw them –
veteran officers – using very good tac-
tics, but they were sweating" from the
stress and realism of what they were
experiencing. "I thought, my goodness,
if it's that realistic in this big audito-
rium, then that's what we need. You
could tell it was intense for them."
But getting a simulator wasn't in his de-
partment's budget at that point, so Cox left the
conference and began talking about his experi-
ence with other police chiefs and officers in St.
Louis County in the ensuing months. The coun-
ty has 56 different police departments inside its
borders and none of them could afford to buy
such a system on their own, he said.
Other officers from around the county
were also at the 2016 conference, which was
sponsored by the Eastern District of Missouri
Chapter of the FBINAA and featured Cox as its
president and chairman that year. Many of those
officers also saw the five-screen simulator and
went through their own situational events using
the system.
"There were lines to try it out," said Cox.
"Everybody was very impressed with
the multi-screen, very realistic system."
For years, officers throughout St. Louis
County have only been able to train with an
outdated system that used a single screen and
animated images to simulate crimes. That old
system is light years from today's multi-screen
systems, he said.
After plenty of discussions among county
police leaders and officers, the St. Louis Police
Foundation, a non-profit group that supports
How Local Law Enforcement Can Collaborate
to Acquire Use of Force Training Simulators
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