LYNN — The firing range at the city’s police department is getting an upgrade, thanks to $77,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funding.
The City Council last week approved funding for the installation of a Virta V-100 virtual interactive system and an Action Target Genesis range system in the police department’s firing range.
Lt. Michael Kenney said that the department’s current indoor shooting range breaks down frequently, limiting police access to firearms training. He said that the Genesis range system, which is completely wireless, will eliminate the range’s lane closures.
“Right now, we’ve got a five lane range that we operate. It’s all connected electronically through wires and cables and pulleys, and at any given time 20 percent of that range is down because of broken cables and wires,” he said. “This new range is 100 percent wireless, so it can operate from behind a booth that we sit in, or our instructors can go out onto the range and then operate it with a hand-held iPad basically.”
Kenney said that being able to digitally troubleshoot retriever problems will make the range easier and faster to maintain, and the Genesis system’s pre-programming feature will provide officers with a wider range of training options.
“The target retrievers that the targets go on are just a much better design. One hundred percent wireless which allows for remote updates to any of the software that needs to be fixed, it allows for any updates, any trouble shooting to happen virtually instantly with the company, which is a big deal on our end,” he said. “What’s really impressive about this Genesis retriever is that you can pre-program them, so that opens us up to a wide range of training options that we have for the officers.”
The Virta V-100 virtual reality simulation program, Police Chief Christopher Reddy said, will facilitate more situational firearms training such as conflict de-escalation and mental illness response.
“This virtual reality system really allows us to incorporate de-escalation scenarios, it allows us to factor in human factors, even something as simple as training modules to determine someone with autism versus other human factors,” Reddy said. “Also, of course, mental illness training, and a whole range, so it provides, really a wide variety of scenarios which our officers face out in the field, so being able to train on those and build those skills is really valuable.”
Police officers need more firearms training, especially training that incorporates different environments and situations, Reddy said.
“I have a strong, strong belief that we should do more and more and more training for law enforcement professionals, but certainly firearms training is one of the most crucial aspects of our training program, and offering officers different scenarios and different environments so that they can build their skills, because obviously it’s so important to have a well-trained officer if those situations arise,” he said.
Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at [email protected].
