(KCPW News) Law enforcement agencies in Salt Lake County will participate in a two-day training seminar this fall to brush up on how to respond to critical situations like officer-involved shootings. The Salt Lake County District Attorney’s office is hosting the event to make sure agencies are up-to-date on the most recent research. District Attorney Sim Gill says the training is meant to raise the level of professionalism in law enforcement agencies so the incidents can be better handled in the future.
“Given that there were a lot of number of officer involved shootings over the last several years, it made sense for us to bring as much information and knowledge as we could, because all of us will benefit from that, the DA’s office, the different agencies that are involved, their legal departments that are there,” he tells KCPW.
The seminar is available for up to three detectives from each police agency, their legal counsels and chiefs of police.
Gill says it will mostly involve how officers should respond in these situations.
“The physical dynamics of a situation, the sensory perception issues, the reaction time issues, how do you interview a person who may be involved in this kind of an incident,” says Gill. “So when we have individuals who are involved in these kinds of scenarios, how do we approach them, how do we get that information from them in a meaningful way.”
In July, a Salt Lake City and a West Valley City police officer were found to have been involved in separate unjustified shootings by the DA’s office, though criminal charges have not been filed. The training seminar takes place in November.
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