The Delaware law enforcement community held a ceremony and demonstration June 25 of the new Mobile Tactical Trainer system at the Delaware State Training Center just north of Smyrna.

    The MTT was developed by General Dynamics Information Technology to give law enforcement and the first responders community access to world class, urban operations training, said Delaware State Police spokesman Sgt. Walter Newton.

    Using fully modular, reconfigurable and transportable buildings, the MTT provides a training platform for small unit urban training. The MTT is enhanced with realistic special effects and interactive targets and equipped with closed circuit video cameras to capture the team as they work for an after action review.

    “They can fire rounds in here,” Newton said.

    Delaware law enforcement agencies now can train realistically in an urban environment. The MTT system will enable units to experience real-world, simulated environments, such as specially designed breach doors and a rappelling station.

    The system can be configured in a variety of ways, giving police an opportunity to practice entering and securing buildings during different training scenarios, Newton said. This training will strengthen the officers’ capabilities in the field resulting in more successful law enforcement operations to keep Delaware citizens safe, Newton said.

    Additionally, specialized teams now can train in Delaware rather than deploy hundreds of miles away.

    Chief William Topping, chairman of the Delaware Police Chiefs Council, said the facility is a great addition for all law enforcement personnel in Delaware.

    “This will be utilized in a constant state of training,” Topping said. “The state is small enough so that the guys come in here to train and then go home instead of sending them out of state and paying for hotels. They can train here during the day and we can have other people train here at night.”

    Topping said training would begin the first week of July. There will be 12 tactical members training in the facility for three weeks. In Delaware, there are 10 tactical teams and 176 tactical members. All tactical members could be trained within three years, he said.

    “This facility makes it possible,” Topping said.

    Nicole Squittiere is a staff writer at the Smyrna/Clayton Sun-Times, a sister paper to the Dover Post.
    
     Email Nicole Squittiere at nicole.squittiere@doverpost.com