About a year ago, the Police Department purchased a top-of-the-line MILO Range training system featuring real-time digital simulations to hone officers’ responses to resistance. All Coon Rapids officers have now trained on the system.
Recently the department offered UnionHerald reporter Connor Cummiskey and a handful of other media the rare opportunity to participate in training exercises with the MILO system at a secure training facility.
Chief Brad Wise said the unprecedented access was meant to showcase the quality of training Coon Rapids officers receive in avoiding the use of force during conflicts.
“We want them to be successful,” Wise said. “We want them to use whatever they can to avoid using force.”
In that spirit, the department prefers to call the training “response to resistance” instead of using the common term “use-of-force” training.
The department says the MILO system enhances its ability to prepare officers to make good decisions in the heat of the moment.
The $50,000 system was not purchased with tax dollars but with forfeiture funds – money the Police Department receives from forfeited property, such as when a DWI offender must give up a vehicle by law.
Detective Brian Eyckaner, a MILO and firearms instructor for the Coon Rapids Police Department, said he’s only aware of one other MILO training system in Anoka County; it belongs to the Sheriff’s Office.
By: Jonathan Young
February 7, 2019