Training on when to use deadly force is common for police officers but Friday the Dallas Police Association confronted city leaders with those situations.
Dallas City Council Members were invited to firearms simulation training at the Police Association office.
“We’re trying to show City Council and the media a little bit of what we see every day, day in and day out, the volatile situations that officers encounter,” DPA President Ron Pinkston said.
Experts from the police department and the Texas Municipal Police Association put holsters on Council Members and taught them when to pull their guns.
Councilman Rick Callahan was confronted with several menacing suspects in different scenarios on the giant computerized video screen simulator. He used his pepper spray, a stun gun and automatic handgun with mixed results and then had to justify his actions.
“I was asking and waiting for back up, waiting and trying to get him to comply. And then here he comes straight at me,” he explained about one situation.
Callahan said it gave him a new appreciation for the difficulties officers face.
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“You’ve got to use the weapons that you’ve got,” Callahan said. “Their job is to go out and diffuse the situation.”
After controversial police shootings around the nation and in North Texas, Texas Municipal Police Association trainer Clint McNear said officers are under a microscope in the fast information age of social media and blogs.
“Every word, every action is dissected and arm chair quarterbacked for days and weeks behind a computer, that an officer literally had to make in a second,” McNear said.
Pinkston believes police can help quell complaints with better public understand of the challenges.
“We think that’s part of the problem,” Pinkston said. “We’re always reactionary after shootings or incidents. We want to be proactive and start educating the public.”
Pinkston said the DPA will soon offer community leaders the opportunity to receive the same firearms simulation training city councilmembers received Friday.
