Officer Ellen Centers (left) and Dr. Rick Dierenfeldt demonstrate the VirTra training simulation in a 540 McCallie Building classroom. Photo by Angela Foster.
“Turn around and show us your hands. Drop the weapon!” yelled Ellen Centers, a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga police officer.
The suspect, a man at a Halloween party wearing a “Jason” costume from “Friday the 13th,” wielded an axe—though it was unclear if it was real or a prop.
Fortunately, the weapon was fake. So was the suspect and the Halloween party.
At the end of the simulation, Centers lowered her prop gun and turned around to Dr. Rick Dierenfeldt, who was manning the fake scenario that projected onto a classroom wall in the 540 McCallie Building.
The program, called a VirTra simulator, is a high-tech simulation that allows trainees to participate in realistic, scenario-based training where their decisions, verbal commands and reactions directly influence the outcome. It will be introduced to the classroom for UTC criminal justice students in the fall.
“You can tie this into an abundance of different courses,” said Dierenfeldt, a UC Foundation associate professor and head of the Department of Criminal Justice. “We’ll also bring students in from a research perspective. We’ll use written surveys to see when they think police should be allowed to do certain things—like use force or make an arrest—and then compare that to how they actually respond in the simulator.”
Participants carry a realistic gun that interacts with the simulation—tracking accuracy, reaction time and shot placement.
According to Dierenfeldt, the simulator offers about 1,000 different scenarios, ranging from noisy parties to mass shooting situations. Users can also practice their shooting at a simulated gun range.
“You can create profiles for every one of them and track their performance over time,” Dierenfeldt said. “If you see consistent problems, whether it’s with trigger pull, sight alignment or how they communicate with suspects, you’ve got a detailed record to help guide training and improvement.”
Dr. Rick Dierenfeldt has over a decade of experience as a former Missouri police officer.
Centers, who has served as a UTC police officer for two years, said that while she has done de-escalation and active shooter training, it was always in person—never through a simulation.
Despite the training being completely simulated, it didn’t take away from the “realness” of an actual encounter with a suspect.
“I noticed that even when I was walking through the simulation, I could feel my own adrenaline,” Centers said. “I pay attention to that so that I remember to breathe and stay focused.
“It gives a very real experience instead of just reading about it. It gives you that practical standpoint.”
VirTra doesn’t want the simulation to feel like a video game. Optional attachments make the experience feel even more realistic, like a device that adds recoil to the gun and a “simulated consequence device” that attaches to your clothing and uses a small electric pulse to simulate being shot.
“If a trainee hesitates when they should have pulled the trigger, it delivers a small jolt,” Dierenfeldt said. “It adds a bit of pain and makes the experience more realistic.”
While the simulation will provide the students with a multitude of learning opportunities, de-escalation techniques will be the most valuable, Dierenfeldt said.
“As far as the training goes, the possibilities with this are endless,” he said. “De-escalation is so important. We have not done a good job of training that.”
Said Centers, “It’s important to always train to de-escalate because our job is to be there to support the community and offer help in the best way for the best outcomes for everyone involved—including the officers, the people who may be victims and even the suspect.”
Atlee Dean, a first-year student in the Master of Criminal Justice Program at UTC and the daughter of a police officer, explained how this training will be beneficial in the classroom.
“In our classes, we learn about law enforcement, laws, police brutality and so much more. Implementing this training into our program allows for students to translate our knowledge into hands-on experiences,” said Dean, who hails from Church Hill, Tennessee. “It gives students an opportunity to step into the role of a law enforcement officer and to truly see how quick our officers have to make these split-second decisions in high-stress situations.
“It truly captures the complexity of the law enforcement profession and emphasizes the need to understand and learn valuable de-escalation skills in conflicts without the real-world consequences that our officers face on a daily basis.”
Atlee Dean, student in the Master of Criminal Justice program, tries out the simulated shooting range.
Another significant component of the training is that it will provide research opportunities for students to explore how people respond under pressure and how biases may affect decision-making.
Dierenfeldt, who served as a police officer for over a decade in Missouri, understands that studying human behavior in high-stress environments is critical, especially when it comes to how officers make decisions in the moment.
“We can account for things in these scenarios like suspect race and sex,” he said. “Are we more likely to pull the trigger in any circumstance? Are we firing more rounds? Are we firing more quickly? Are we delaying if the suspect is of a certain demographic?”
Centers expressed how serious this research is, saying, “We’re accountable for every single bullet.”
In her experience as a police officer, Centers said she often thinks back to her training during those high-stress situations that make her heart race.
“Weapons can kill people,” she said. “When you pull that trigger in the scenario you may accidentally shoot somebody who’s not pointing a weapon at you. It’s obviously better to make that big ‘oops’ on the simulation than in the field.”
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Photo gallery by Angela Foster
