City of OKC

Recommendation No. 18:

OKCPD should develop a specific, comprehensive training plan to ensure CIT officers have sufficient support and training.

OKCPD should develop a specific and comprehensive training plan for ensuring that CIT officers have sufficient support and training both in the short-term and throughout their careers.

Project Status: 70% Implemented

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Project Details from Consultant Report

Discussions with the Reality Based Training Unit shed light on OKCPD’s recent approach to training and development. What started as a return to duty program (ensuring that officers are ready to resume work after a critical event, such as an officer-involved shooting), is becoming a scenario-based training unit focused on “de- escalation, mentally challenged individuals, duty to intervene, officer self-care, and sanctity of life.”

President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing emphasized the “need for realistic, scenario-based training to better manage interactions and minimize force . . . . ” As the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights has recommended, “[o]fficers should practice, in interactive environments . . . de-escalation techniques and threat assessment strategies that account for implicit bias in decision-making.” Rather than passively consuming information about law or policy, officers need the opportunity to learn, apply, and practice decision-making skills with realistic contexts. In the same way that continuing training for pilots puts them in flight simulators to practice the response to real-world flight scenarios, effective law enforcement training presents real-world scenarios and asks officers to respond. Many practical strategies grounded in adult learning techniques are effective police instruction, including; verbal scenarios, group discussions analyzing officer performance from an incident captured on video, role playing, demonstration, group analysis of scenario performance, “teach-backs” in which students provide instruction to fellow students on designated topics, and many others.

In 2020, the department implemented a Reality Based Training Unit, tasked with identifying, designing, and implementing any scenario-based training that will benefit officers. The RBT Unit designed a space at the Police Training Center in which officers could experience reality-based scenarios that focus on principles of de- escalation, sanctity of life, decision making, teamwork, and leadership. We are informed that in 2021, the RBT Unit plans to deliver at least eight-hours of Critical Skills and Decision-Making scenarios to over 300 officers and supervisors throughout the Operations Bureau. The unit is exploring sector level small team training, which will help supervisors and sector-level patrol units to train together and thereby learn their strengths and weaknesses. Such an approach is valuable, as often trainings draw from different sectors to preserve services to the public and therefore lose the team cohesion. OKCPD is using overlap days to keep teams together without compromising service.

The Reality Based Training Unit appears to be a strong start in the right direction for coordinating a comprehensive plan for de-escalation training.