Future Police Officers Train To Handle Domestic Violence Calls

TUPELO, MISS. (WCBI) – Domestic violence calls are among the most dangerous for police. An incident can turn violent or deadly in a matter of seconds, and police must be prepared to handle any situation.

That’s what future police officers are learning about this week at the North Mississippi Law Enforcement Training Center.

The domestic violence training puts cadets in different scenarios featuring volunteers from the community, including myself, who role play a real-life situation.

In our case, I was assigned the role of a man who is dating a married woman, the two are discovered when the woman’s husband comes home unexpectedly, and a fight breaks out.

Cadets work in teams of three, answering the call, and trying to sort things out as emotions and tempers are flaring.

They interview everyone involved, and hopefully go through the steps, patting each person down to make sure no one has weapons, and document any visible injuries. In our scenario, makeup was applied to represent bruises. Cadets also decide who goes to jail.

Itawamba County Sheriff’s Deputy Fred Heckart was one of the actors in our scenario. He says the training helps cadets get a better grasp of what they will face on the streets.

“It’s that true to life feeling, they get to feel the adrenaline, even in a scenario, it’s real enough they have to make decisions on the fly, just like they would in a real home, in a real violent situation, where one, three, four, five people may be there,” Deputy Heckart said.

One of the main goals for any police officer answering a domestic violence call is to de-escalate the situation as quickly as possible, and these role-playing scenarios help cadets see how to do just that while keeping everyone safe.

“You have to pay attention to detail, what people are saying, what they are doing, where their bodies are oriented towards, a lot of details they tell you about in class but it’s different when you are in there,” said Cadet Michael Roberts, who will work with the University of Mississippi Police Department.

“Within seconds, we had a gun pulled out, technically, it started off bad, but it was an eye-opener for the rest of us, to pay attention to every little thing,” said Cadet Laura Mays, who will work with the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Department.

Each session wraps with a debriefing, where cadet’s actions are reviewed and critiqued, by a representative with the Attorney General’s office.

In this case, cadets are told the only person who could have legally been arrested, is the wife, who hit her husband. The husband is considered a victim of domestic violence, but he could not legally be arrested without a witness or a warrant.

Next week, cadets in Class B 67 will be in firearms training. There are sixteen cadets in the class.