Ogden police training to respond to incidents involving people with autism

OGDEN — About 1 in 100 children lives with autism, according to the World Health Organization. That means there's a good chance you or someone close to you knows someone who has been impacted.

The Ogden Police Department is improving its training for responding to people with autism with the help of a simulator.

With the VirTra Simulator, officers can go through new scenarios, create scenarios that focus on more specific instances or tailor details to a local area.

Police often have just seconds to identify what's going on and act.

"One of the biggest reasons we have this is to be able to teach officers that there are so many other tools they could use aside from the tools that are here on their belt. Primarily, their No. 1 tool is their brain, and their ability to be able to think through situations," said Ogden Police Lt. Will Farr.

Farr said the VirTra Simulator allows them a way to help teach officers how to de-escalate situations. He said it also helps them practice how to respond to someone with autism, who may be in crisis or may not be responding in a typical way toward police.

He said training happens regularly with officers at least once a quarter. Usually, the training happens more often, according to Farr.

The hope is that by training in these scenarios, officers will be able to recognize what's going on and respond in the best way during real-life situations.

"We don't always have a lot of time to be able to process what's going on. The more that we allow officers to be able to see scenarios and train in scenarios before they actually get in the scenario, it allows their brain to pull back up the information," Farr said.

Farr said they've gotten direct feedback from officers who have gone through training and different scenarios.

After encountering a similar situation on the street, he said officers have said they're glad they had the training beforehand.

The simulator is also used for different kinds of interactive training including verbal training and learning skills to de-escalate situations.

Utah lawmakers approved HB334 during the 2021 legislative session, which deals with special needs training for law enforcers.

The effort to get legislators to change the law to require more autism training was already in motion when a Salt Lake police officer shot 13-year-old Linden Cameron on Sept. 4 as he ran from them in the area of 500 South and Navajo Street (1335 West). Linden had been acting out that day and his mother — who was exhausted and felt like she was out of options — called police asking for members of the Crisis Intervention Team to respond. Linden survived the shooting, but faced a long recovery.

Contributing: Ashley Imlay

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