Carter County Sheriff’s Office trains on tool to help with decision-making in the field

ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. (WJHL) — Six officers trained with the Carter County Sheriff’s Office on a new training simulator Thursday.

The sheriff’s office applied for a grant to pay for the simulator earlier this year.

The simulator is meant to help officers with decision-making in the field.

Officers are provided a situation. They react to it and then debrief with the instructor.

Training sheriff’s officer Paul Morell said the simulations vary in difficulty.

“It just depends on which way the situation goes,” Morell said. “But there’s definitely some that are harder than others.”

Situations in the simulation can change depending on how the officer reacts. They train on how to react depending on whether the situation goes a good way or a bad way.

“(The simulation is) about as close as you can get to being in an actual situation out there on the streets,” Morell said.

Rich Isnetto, a trainer with Titanium Training Labs, described how in-depth the training is.

“Adding items like tourniquet training, communication with dispatch, supervisory response to a critical incident, all of those things you can practice in here and fine-tune so that when it happens out on the street, everything goes smoothly,” Isnetto said.

Simulations include common welfare checks to active shooter situations. Updates come every six months. Carter County Sheriff Mike Fraley said the plan is to get his 140 or so employees trained next.

“Once you graduate the police academy and go out there, it doesn’t stop,” Fraley said. “Law enforcement is an ever-changing world. The more the time we can get officers in here, I think, the better off they will be.”

The simulator also comes with augmented reality goggles that put you right in the situation, showing your hands and even people recording.

Simulations included can be used to train SROs, patrol officers, court officers, and correction officers.

Fraley said the only other departments in the area that have this equipment are Bristol and Knoxville. He is offering up this system to other departments in the area to train as well.