They're Not Playing Games, These Wyoming Cops Use Virtual Reality To Train

The Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office is giving virtual reality cop-training a test run.

Its deputies are already about “half bionic,” department spokesman Jason Mower told Cowboy State Daily, meaning they’re equipped with Axon tasers, body and dash cameras and other technology that are integrated together.

For example, if a deputy removes his taser from its holster and turns it on, the deputy’s body camera will flick on automatically, if it’s not already on, Mower said. If a deputy’s vehicle accelerates to a certain speed or activates its lights and sirens, the car’s camera system will switch on, he added.

As part of the department’s longstanding use of Axon products, it’s now enjoying a temporary test-run of a virtual reality headset for deputy training, but hasn't decided whether to buy it, Mower said.

“It’s a VR system just like the kids use,” he said. “It comes in this great big Pelican case and includes a simulated pistol and simulated taser.”

The fake gun and fake taser have technology built into them to integrate them with the headset. Also part of the system is a tablet, which the trainer holds. And the trainer can run the trainee through a choose-your-own-adventure gauntlet of police scenarios ranging from a tense discussion to a critical incident, said Mower.

The trainer can watch how the trainee merely deescalates a frantic person — or how he stops a shooting. 

Sneaking Up Behind You

The department already has a use-of-force simulator, but it’s two-dimensional or basically a projection screen exercise, Mower said. And it doesn’t have scenarios beyond use-of-force, like simple verbal de-escalation.

Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Detective Ashley Merrell said the VR system is different because it’s “immersive.”

“You can walk around and move – you can have people walk up behind you,” she said. The trainee has to consider what’s going on everywhere: at his feet, behind his back, to his side.

And that can be daunting. “The trainee won’t think it’s not real or funny,” said Merrell.

The virtual reality set puts the trainer right in the trainee’s optic nerve. That’s how Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Lt. Rich Fischer described it.

“It provides (the trainers) the ability to see what (the trainees) are seeing and help understand the decisions they might be making,” said Fischer. “We can see and evaluate their performance and make corrections if needed or have discussions about why they maybe chose to do things the way they did.”

Didn’t Like Being Spider-Man

This isn’t the first time the department has given a test-run to an Axon gadget, Mower said. Deputies tried bolo wraps, which the spokesman described as resembling “old-school, like ‘90s tasers,” but shooting wires out to bind the legs or upper torso of a suspect.

“It’s like Spider-Man web,” Mower said.

The department didn’t ultimately buy those after the test run. But it was nice to have the test period, to get deputy feedback ahead of the sales pitch, he said.

As of last week, Mower and the others trying out the virtual reality headset said they had no idea how much it costs. That’s a “punch line” Axon will announce at the end of the demo phase, Mower said.

$40,000 For One Year

The Natrona County Sheriff’s Office bought the VR headsets recently and received them in November, the department’s public information officer Kiera Hett told Cowboy State Daily in an email last week.

The installation cost the sheriff’s office $2,400, according to the department’s Nov. 1 invoice plan, which Hett sent to the outlet.

VR taser training access for 109 users cost $31,221.95. Five headsets cost $797.20 together. Another headset bundle of five cost $1024.56; a bundle of five VR tablets cost $564.48. Five taser controllers together cost $1,004.54. Five handgun controllers cost $1,068.48. Five more controllers cost $2,153.20, the invoice says.

Together those costs add up to $40,234.41.

The invoice plan contemplates recurring costs for the VR sets for every year through 2028.

In an email to Cowboy State Daily, Axon pointed to some offset of the products’ cost, saying that unlike working with a VR taser, a trainee working with a real-life taser could burn through $1,000 worth of taser probes by practicing on 40 different targets.

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.