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Collin College first to adopt de-escalation-based firearms training

MCKINNEY, Texas - Building Shooters Technology LLC (BST) has announced that the Collin College Public Safety Training Center is the first law enforcement academy in the State of Texas to adopt de-escalation-focused firearms training. Building Shooters is a vendor to Collin College, which procured BST’s proprietary NURO® System.

Collin College’s program is a true first for Texas law enforcement in that visual stimulus is used throughout the curriculum to drive officer decision-making and de-escalation relative to subject behavior. New York State’s Division of Criminal Justice Services was the first entity globally to evaluate and implement these paradigm-shifting advances in training. They were approved by the New York Municipal Police Training Council in 2022 and are already being delivered by the Syracuse Police Department. State-wide implementation in New York is expected to be completed by September 1, 2024.

The impacts of these curriculum changes were highlighted during September’s Public Safety Symposium in Albany, New York. “It cannot be overstated how big of a deal this is,” said Justin Smith, a data science leader and neuroscience Ph.D. whose research focus is the molecular processes for decision-making and stress. “Using visual stimulus to control range training develops firearms skills that are different, at a synaptic level, than anything we have seen before in law enforcement. The advancement in de-escalation capability for new officers is truly ground-breaking.”

“These new tools allow us to vary the possibilities of the target being a threat or no-threat and even change it during the exposure from a threat to sudden no threat,” stated LeRoy Fuentes, the Collin College Range Master, “One of our goals was to improve recruits’ ability to make decisions under stress and de-escalate during incidents that involve use-of-force. We are already seeing improvements in visuomotor skills performance and expect improved outcomes with regards to decision-making, de-escalation, and mistake-of-fact shootings.”

About Building Shooters

Building Shooters Technology LLC assists armed workforces with restructuring their training and qualification programs. The company also designs and manufactures specialty training products focused on decision making and de-escalation. BST helped New York State re-write its police recruit firearms training curriculum and presently consults with numerous other agencies and organizations. For more information visit https://buildingshooters.com and follow @bldg_shooters on X.