Police Cadets Learn How Not To Shoot
The Holland College’s School of Justice Atlantic Police Academy has invested more than $100,000 in the Firearms Training System, a state-of-the-art technology that puts cadets in a variety of scenarios using an overhead screen and a computer with a complex software program.
The cadet is armed with a modified Smith and Wesson handgun that fires a laser beam at the screen, and a modified pepper spray that uses a laser. “Although we call this Firearms Training System, the purpose of the system is to teach our police officers not to shoot,” says firearms instructor Jean-Roch Garneau. “So the candidate has to use everything at his disposal, his communication skills, everything that he’s learned to resolve that situation in a peaceful manner, bring it to a peaceful outcome.”
Communications skills resolve around 97 percent of police interventions, Garneau estimates, adding that an officer must take Criminal Code provisions, social ethics, departmental policy, and provincial laws into account as well.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from the Charlottetown Guardian (CAN) (03/10/03) P. A4 .