Located in the Piedmont region of Central Virginia, Albemarle County has an area of 726 square miles. The county is a unique blend of rural and urban developments with an estimated population of 109,330 (2019 Estimated Census.gov). As the primary law enforcement agency in this community, Albemarle County Police Department saw an opportunity to better prepare its officers with training equipment designed to improve decision making in high-pressure situations.
After significant research on the various options, the Albemarle County Police Department chose to include the Apex Officer's X2 judgmental use of force simulator as a major component of its training program. Albemarle County Police Department is leading the way in progressive police training policies in the state of Virginia.
In a recent interview with NBC 29 News, Albemarle County Police Department Lt Tripp Martin said, “We can go through as many times as we want, we can move it to a different location. We can have officers training for five minutes or 30 minutes like us. It just gives us a little bit of an edge on training as far as putting us in real life scenarios in a safe environment. And we’re able to provide feedback to the officers on how they respond.”
“Now that we have it, our updates and our subscriptions are free, so we’re able to use it and train whenever we want. We don’t have to pay for off site training. We don’t have to pay for extra ammunition,” Lt. Martin said.