Menomonie, Dunn County law enforcement train at CVTC
Apr. 5—MENOMONIE — "Hi, my name is Kayla," Menomonie Police Officers Kayla Tisol, an investigator, said. "I work with the police department. We received a call because you're crying in the hallway. Can you put the knife down?"
This is how Tisol and her partner Kelly Pollock, a lieutenant, approached Dalton Dey as he sat sobbing in a corner of the Menomonie Chippewa Valley Technical College building, holding a realistic-looking knife in his hands.
The exchange was part of a drill during law enforcement training, but according to Tyler Ingebretson, a Menomonie police officer who participated in the training, calls like this are typical.
"We see these types of calls for welfare checks every shift or every other shift," he said. "It's a common call."
Chad Mroczenski, a lieutenant with the Menomonie Police Department, has been leading training like this for Dunn County law enforcement agencies for nearly 20 years. He said law enforcement like to do training in familiar community buildings, and the CVTC building in Menomonie fit the bill for it during spring break.
"We like to train in buildings within our community to get familiar with them," he said while scenarios were playing out down the hallway of the College last week. "It's difficult to find space to be able to train ... so we have to utilize buildings that are already occupied — like in schools during spring break. This works perfectly for us."
Not only does the arrangement benefit local law enforcement, it benefits CVTC as well.
Dan Lytle, CVTC Menomonie campus manager, said the training benefits the College because local law enforcement members become familiar with the building as they run through exercises.
"This provides law enforcement groups with access to our building and, as a result, they become familiar with our space," Lytle said in a CVTC news release. "If the need arises to sweep the building following an emergency, they have a very detailed understanding of our space."
Five agencies, Menomonie Police Department, Dunn County Sheriff's Office, UW-Stout Police, Colfax Police Department and the Wisconsin State Patrol, worked on different tactics during the training including clearing rooms, communication with each other and their subjects, and other protocols and procedures.
For Mroczenski, one of the most important parts of training is creating realistic scenarios, and using CVTC's building helped to do that.
"We want to avoid getting in the mindset of training one way," he said. "We're trying to make it a little more realistic. They may be using force. They may be using communication skills. They're not exactly sure what is coming."
In the first scenario, Pollock said they saw the weapon, and after a brief conversation with Dey, they realized he wasn't waving it at them and didn't intend to hurt anyone. This isn't always the case. Sometimes the weapon isn't always visible and people they encounter don't always want to talk.
"We don't always know what they have or don't have, but it's taking the time to talk about it and get them to feel comfortable," Pollock said in a news release.
Officer Tisol finds that a soft demeanor and compassion seems to de-escalate a situation.
"Being a little bit more sensitive to the situation is a benefit. Making people feel understood and appreciated helps," she said.
During another scenario, a perpetrator runs away and another is hiding in a room with a weapon. Groups of three officers and deputies ran the drill, practicing what they've been taught. Mroczenski debriefed with the law enforcement members after each drill and was pleased with the outcomes, according to a news release.
"One of the things you think about when an officer shows up in uniform is, 'I'm going to jail.' You think of them as an officer. You don't think of them as a person," Mroczenski said. "We're people first. We're doing a job that requires us to wear a uniform and put ourselves in these situations. We want to show people that we're human, too."
