New Training Helps Bartlesville Officers Simulate Realistic Critical Situations

Bartlesville Police Officers are being put to the test with new training that puts them in real life situations where they have to make split second decisions to shoot or don’t shoot.

Tri County Tech in Bartlesville bought the MILO shooting training program, and police have partnered with them to use it for training.

Chief Tracy Roles said this training isn’t to teach officers how to shoot their guns, he said that’s the easy part. He said it’s designed to put officers in realistic situations, where they are forced to make tough decisions, decisions that could be deadly.

Police say these are situations officers can face at any time.

“It’s naive of law enforcement to not train as much as they possibly can when it comes to decision making on when to use deadly force and when not to,” said Chief Roles.

Officers walk away from these scenarios without being hurt or killed and after each one, they go over it with an instructor and talk about what they did right or wrong.

Chief Roles said officers owe it to the communities they serve to be able to make solid decisions, especially when the decisions could be deadly.

“It’s life or death important that our officers make the right decisions in those critical incidents. We want them to make those bad decisions in a room like this, not out on the street when it really matters,” said Chief Roles.