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ST. GEORGE — During annual training for the St. George Police Department, officials tried to make the atmosphere as stressful as possible.
“We try to create environments to have officers feel the feelings and the effects of high-stress situations so that they can experience them in a training. When the actual scenario comes in real life, they can respond and act appropriately,” said Sgt. Sam Despain.
The entire police force was trained over a couple weeks and experienced a variety of circumstances they could face on the job. One involved a movie theater during which an active shooting was simulated to present the potential difficulties of dealing with darkened rooms, multiple shooters and loud atmospheres.
The officer has to choose almost in a split-second what skill to use to deal with any individual, and that's the beauty of these controlled environments. We can see instantly if there's any training or re-training with an individual officer to improve skills.
–Sgt. Tyler Cowan
“The officer has to choose almost in a split-second what skill to use to deal with any individual, and that’s the beauty of these controlled environments. We can see instantly if there’s any training or re-training with an individual officer to improve skills,” said Sgt. Tyler Cowan. Cowan is part of the department’s firearms unit.
The FBI released data showing that during a 13-year span (2000-2013), 160 incidents of active shooters impacted the nation. During that time, shooters killed or wounded more than one thousand people. Wednesday’s tragedy in South Carolina adds to that terrible total, where a gunman opened fire in a church and killed nine people.
Though thousands of miles away, the import of readiness for any situation isn’t lost on law enforcement in Utah’s Dixie.
“We prepare for the very worst,” said Despain. “We don’t view it as St. George, the sleepy little town where nothing happens. We’re preparing for this to happen. We’re going to expect that this will happen. We hope that it doesn’t happen, but this is about saving lives.”
