How do you provide hundreds of police officers from your state with life-saving simulation training? The Utah Attorney General’s Office found a solution—by transforming its office into a state-of-the-art training hub.
Innovative Training for Utah Police
Utah enjoys some of the lowest crime rates in the U.S., and the Utah Attorney General’s Office is committed to maintaining this status. Its strategy involves intensive simulator training for Utah police officers. In 2015, the Utah Attorney General’s Office launched an innovative program, establishing a training unit to support local agencies.
William Fowlke, the Training Center Director at the Attorney General’s Investigation Division, highlighted the innovative training methods used to prepare officers statewide.
“The training unit really began with the purchase of the VirTra simulator. And while we considered several simulator options, VirTra’s robust content offering and IADLEST certification were key factors in the decision to use it’s systems. It saved us a lot of development time and money,” said Fowlke.
VirTra simulators provide immersive, high-retention training experiences, and by 2018, their V-VICTA curriculum was introduced, offering POST-certified course material. The Investigation Division training program began incorporating these courses, focusing on de-escalation and use of force.
Expanding Training Programs to Meet Modern Policing Needs
When the Utah legislature mandated autism awareness training for its officers, Fowlke and his team seized the opportunity to create a cutting-edge program using V-VICTA. This initiative integrated VirTra’s 2020 Special Populations: Autism Awareness training with insights from the Autism Council of Utah, resulting in an award-winning course. Due to its success, the training is now offered to all officers in the state. The program’s expansion has significantly increased the scope of the Attorney General’s training unit, which now trains over a thousand officers from 30 agencies annually.
According to Fowlke, Utah’s officers are enthusiastic about the new training.
“They’re happy to be put in an environment where they can learn and not be punished for making mistakes. Once we explain that they are there to learn, not to be judged, they are a lot less nervous, and leave the sessions with a lot more confidence in their new skills.”
Encouraged by the program’s success, William Fowlke and his team decided to upgrade their simulator in 2024. They chose VirTra’s top-of-the-line V-300 4K ProTruss model, a five-screen environment designed for maximum immersion.
With enhanced capacity to train more recruits, the Training Center also introduced a pistol red dot course. As red dot optics become more widely adopted by police agencies, the team needed a solution to help officers develop the necessary skills to use red dots effectively. Once again, V-VICTA proved a worthy basis for the course they sought to develop. Using VirTra’s Red Dot Optic Training & Sustainment Course as the basis, Fowlke and his team created a robust new module that they are currently working on implementing state-wide.
Utah Attorney General’s Office’s decade-long legacy of training innovation with VirTra shows no signs of slowing down. In 2025, the unit plans to integrate VirTra’s My Story: Kyle Dinkheller lesson into its mental health and de-escalation curriculum, as well as the new Graham v. Connor course, which reenacts the landmark use-of-force case.
The Utah Attorney General’s Office’s strategy shows a successful model for preparing large groups of officers for real-world scenarios: sharing simulator resources and using existing, certified curriculum. Fowlke explained the philosophy behind their approach:
“We remind officers that the body can’t go where the mind hasn’t been. And unless you expose people to these kinds of experiences, they won’t be prepared for the field.”
By leveraging certified curriculum and shared resources, the Utah Attorney General’s office offers a scalable, practical model for preparing law enforcement officers to face real-world challenges.
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