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A Glock G17, loaded with invisible ammunition, is in my hands.
My shoulders feel like they’re up to my ears, as I wait anxiously for a man on the screen to move. Suddenly, he raises a gun of his own and a single bang rings out.
“Whoa! What happened?” Sgt. Timothy Lendman of the Livermore Police Department asked as he paused the simulation from behind a computer screen.
“I didn’t have time to process what happened,” I told Lendman, still staring at the freeze-frame.
I was even forewarned that I’d need to fire a fake shot in this particular scenario of VirTra, a virtual training system for police officers and military.
Had I fired though, a laser would have struck the screen and a canister of gas would have kicked back the gun for a realistic recoil. Except, I’m no officer-in-training.
LPD introduced the virtual training system in 2022, becoming the only department in the Tri-Valley to-date with the technology. Since then, they have used VirTra to supplement every officer’s training on less-lethal and lethal weapons as well as life-like scenarios.
“Every officer that goes through this at a high level of stress and comes out successful is successful in our community,” Lendman said. “They’re going to be so much better prepared out in the streets to deal with whatever it is that comes their way.”
Police officers enter a wide range of scenarios, whether a call is related to domestic violence, theft or mental illness, Lendman said. Each type of scenario also contains variables to make each one unique.
“I still have to perform. There’s nobody else to call,” Lendman said amid the variety of issues the police face. “We need to train a lot, even on each one of those skill sets”.
This is where VirTra comes in, Lendman explained. It’s a simulator that allows LPD to put officers in realistic situations they could see in the city.
Prepared with about 300 scenarios, VirTra includes active shooter, mental illness and traffic stop situations that change based on the officer’s actions. An operator is required to interpret the participant’s behaviors and select a pathway among branching outcomes.
Options in front of the officers include communicating with the actor and using de-escalation strategies or using force through unloaded weapons like firearms, tasers, pepper spray and bean bag gun.
If the student’s words and tone are calming, the operator may choose scenes that indicate voluntary compliance. But if the student is agitated or raises their voice, the operator may increase the intensity of the verbal altercation to where the participant must use force.
“The end-goal is for better, smarter outcomes when it comes to police interactions,” LPD spokesperson Azenith Smith said of VirTra.
The department was introduced to VirTra when Lt. Steve Goard and Lendman discovered the technology in 2017. The two then pitched the system to Police Chief Jeramy Young, who greenlit the idea after other training systems were evaluated.
Further, the Livermore City Council offered its approval and agreed to purchase the system at its June 27, 2022, meeting for an amount not-to-exceed $260,000. The actual system cost was approximately $250,000, according to Smith.
There are no additional costs for the system at this time. But if less-lethal weapons become available to law enforcement in the future, it may be incorporated into training for “minimal” costs, Smith said.
“We’re really happy to leverage the technology and be a leader in the area, as far as training goes in virtual simulation,” Young said of VirTra.
While the use of VirTra cannot be statistically linked to scenario outcomes, the technology boosts officer’s sense of preparedness, Goard said.
The LPD reports that the majority of its responses do not involve force. Last year, LPD officers used force 24 times out of 58,703 calls for service. In the years ranging from 2020 and 2024, LPD used force between 21 and 35 times per year, according to Smith.
Instead of directly impacting outcomes, Goard described VirTra as one of the contributing factors to officer responses.
Through VirTra, the department exposes officers to safe versions of high-stress situations so they can practice maintaining their processing abilities. Whether it be the branching scenario, a faulty mock weapon or a shock device, the stress level and cognitive load can be increased incrementally, Goard explained.
“We have to expose our officers to high-stress situations, to where they can still cognitively process the same,” Goard said. “The more we can do that, the better they are.”
Among the major focuses of recent VirTra training has been mental health crises, which have increased industry-wide beginning in 2019, Goard said.
LPD is on its ninth training this year for mental crisis situations, above POST’s requirement of eight hours every two years for this type of training, Goard said. The department aims to rehearse mental health-related scenarios with officers so they are familiar with how best to respond.
He stepped into such a scenario the afternoon of my visit to the police department.
In the scene, a man stood on a ledge, threatening his own life.
“I’ve got lots of resources”, Goard said to the actor on screen. “Can you just step down for me, please?”
With more encouragement, the projected man stepped safely onto the rooftop.
“That is an idealistic of what we’re looking for,” Lendman said as he paused the scenario.
Previously, this situation may have been run-through with a table-top or verbal exercise.
While the department has always pushed for more training, LPD found that time and money were limiting factors to the officer’s training, Goard said.
Before the department began using the simulator, LPD held five trainings per year like most other agencies, Goard said. These sessions included societal demands and guidelines from the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, which establishes professional standards for California law enforcement.
In this pre-VirTra time, the annual day of less-lethal training could cost the department $36,000, Goard explained.
Now equipped with the technology, LPD holds six to 12 training sessions on less-lethal weapons per year, Goard said. Each session costs about $2,000, or the wage of the instructor on overtime.
Not just frequent training, the technology also allows for quick lessons. For example, a new officer can go through 15 scenarios in half an hour, Goard said.
Plus, the technology allows LPD to run standardized training, rather than live-actor training which Goard said cannot be replicated precisely.
VirTra also allows room for officers to learn from failure, Lendman said.
“I would rather them experience failure here in a safe training environment, than when they’re out there on the streets, dealing with it the first time where we want to see success,” Lendman said.
Through mistakes in virtual training the officers can learn the best tactics to use in the field.
Lendman added, “We can improve, sharpen ourselves many times and then get better for our community members and for us as well.”
“Perfect practice makes perfect,” Goard added.
