Fort Myers Police Department is the primary law enforcement agency responsible for providing policing and public safety services to the over 87,000 residents living and working in the greater Fort Myers area. As the primary law enforcement agency within this community, FMPD was looking for a better way to train and prepare their officers for real-life de-escalation and use of force incidents.

After significant research on the various options, the Fort Myers Police Department chose to include the Apex Officer virtual reality use of force, crisis intervention, and de-escalation training simulator as a major component of its training program. The Apex Officer VR system is capable of simulating an infinite number of different training scenarios that can convey body language and other non-verbal threat cues that are a crucial part of progressive judgmental use of force training.

In a recent interview with a local news agency, Lt Jason Pate stated, "this Apex Officer system allows the officers to really interact with somebody in crisis or different scenarios and different environments so they really get to develop de-escalation skills, de-escalation techniques, having a conversation with someone, all that we couldn’t do prior.” FMPD currently has two Apex Officer VR simulators and they were acquired without any additional cost to members of the community. “It didn’t cost the taxpayers anything, but they’re going to reap the benefits of getting better training for their police officers,” said Lt. Pate.