WAKE COUNTY, N.C. — In the year since George Floyd’s death, police actions and reactions have come under scrutiny.
Currently, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is stalled in Congress. The goal is to reform police procedures and laws to prevent confrontations like the one that resulted in Floyd's death.
Spectrum News 1 decided to take a look at some of the training police officers in the Raleigh area go through in order to prepare for tough situations and decisions they'll have to make, including when to use deadly force.
The law enforcement training offered at Wake Tech is essentially a very lifelike video game. It can put an officer in hundreds of different scenarios and, based on their actions, the instructor can change the outcome in real time. It’s often the split-second decision that can change someone’s life.
“That’s what we’re trying to accomplish is put them under stress, so they know what it feels like and they respond appropriately,” said Travis Baker, a law enforcement instructor at Wake Tech.
Wake Tech is also home to a space that allows instructors to re-create the inside of a room or building. It has furniture and lifelike dummies inside. During that training, non-lethal bullets may be fired at officers as another way to immerse officers in real-life situations.