Hawkeye Law Enforcement Academy provides students, cadets, and sworn law enforcement officers with the latest techniques and learning opportunities with virtual, simulation, and advanced technology. Hawkeye is a Regional Law Enforcement Training Facility approved by the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy Council. Since Hawkeye opened its doors in 1966, it has focused on meeting the needs of the community, providing quality, affordable training for learners at all stages of life. In an effort to stay ahead of the curve, Hawkeye Law Enforcement Academy was looking for a new training simulator that utilizes technology from this generation.

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Apex Officer's virtual reality simulator is a new and innovative way of giving officers and cadets from all over Iowa hands-on training in de-escalation situations. In the past, officers and cadets would have to go through the traditional classroom and lecture-based training at the academy. Now, with Apex Officer's virtual reality simulator designed and tailored to law enforcement training academies' specific training needs, officers and cadets can experience a real-world training scenario, virtually in their classroom.

Through the Apex Officer platform officers are fully immersed in a VR situation. As soon as officers suit up they forget they are in a training room and instead are virtually placed inside the crisis situation to which they are responding. Another officer creates the scenarios, with characters, and, is able to change the narrative at any moment.

Hawkeye CC has had the opportunity to facility training at local law enforcement agencies due to the portability of the Apex Officer system. And the results are overwhelmingly positive:

“It’s going to be really interesting to see how this works,” said Forest City Police Chief Tom Montgomery, ahead of the training. “It’s a brand new system for very important training.”

“I think it’s a really good move with what we’re seeing in the world today,” said councilman and former Forest City Police Chief Dan Davis.