Career Development: From theory to practice
An innovative combination of training and education at an Illinois facility is prepared to fill the needs of future law enforcement trainees
The College of DuPage, a 40-year-old institution in Glen Ellyn, Ill., recently finished building it's state-of-the-art 60,000 square-foot Homeland Security Education Center. The center features multiple special training rooms including an indoor street scene equipped with training-technology-savvy company Cubic Corp.'s urban instrumentation system, laser sensors and ballistically accurate laser transmitters mounted on actual weapons to realistically simulate gun battles.
On August 17 the college hosted a full-scale reenactment of the North Hollywood bank robbery to demonstrate the HEC’s training abilities. HEC has forensic and cybercrimes labs, a mock courtroom, a smoke room with moveable walls for firefighter scenarios and a debriefing room with floor-to-ceiling viewing screens.
For the Hollywood shootout demo, officers from West Chicago, North Aurora, Braidwood and Bloomingdale played the four officers and two assailants. The role players exchanged “gunfire” in the 4,500 square-foot indoor street scene using Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) equipment from Cubic Corp.
