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Harnessing the power of tech for military police

Military police face some of the same challenges local and state police face on a daily basis such as domestic violence, suicide threats and assult incidents — and then some. It stands to reason, then, that MPs should have access to all the same technology as civilian officers. Here are four ways Axon is supporting military police and their mission.

Less-lethal options

Police forces across the country — military police included — are focused on the use of force continuum, and Axon wants to ensure military police are confident in their less-lethal options.

“De-escalation using non-lethal weapons is just as relevant on a military base as on the civilian side,” says Ric Ramirez, federal strategic account executive at Axon. “That’s why we wanted to make sure that if an officer decides to use his or her TASER weapon in the field, they’re not going to have to revert to lethal because something went sideways.”

TASER 7 is Axon’s most effective conducted energy weapon (CEW) to date. Improved darts fly straighter and faster with nearly twice the kinetic energy for better connection to the target. And with 93% increased probe spread at close range — where 85% of deployments occur — TASER 7 outperforms all other CEWs.

Next-generation training

Training is another aspect of policing that’s garnering a great deal of attention these days. While the military excels at training, military police forces face the same training challenges that civilian forces face: It’s costly and time-consuming.

Axon Virtual Reality Training makes training more accessible. Through a combination of hardware and programming, Axon VR Training is an effective supplement to live-action training scenarios. Rather than having to take MPs off the road to send them to training, you can easily run through a scenario or two during briefing. And with countless variables in each VR module, your MPs can go through a certain scenario multiple times and have a different experience each time.

Plus, Axon VR Training goes deeper than shoot/don’t shoot scenarios. It’s designed to help military police learn to better handle all types of calls — most notably mental health crises, which plague military bases.

“Some of these units have been deployed six, seven, eight times in the past 10 years,” Ramirez says, “and so MPs are encountering a lot of individuals with PTSD, alcoholism and other issues. It’s essential to know how to deal with these situations, and training is just so important.”

Body-worn cameras

While military police forces haven’t yet experienced quite the same pressure for transparency that civilian police forces have, there are still plenty of reasons to adopt body-worn cameras —  not the least of which is being able to recognize individuals at risk of being a danger to themselves or others.

“Before a person with PTSD commits suicide, there are usually tells,” Ramirez says. “Whether it be a domestic violence incident or some kind of psychotic episode, there is often some sort of police interaction with an individual before they kill themselves.”

Having such interactions on video can help military police and crisis intervention specialists identify those who might be likely to harm themselves or others.

Additional benefits of body-worn cameras include evidence capture, officer accountability and complaint resolution. And with Axon Body 3 cameras, real-time technology lets you know where all your MPs are — not just their vehicles — at any given moment, so you can effortlessly send assistance where needed.

Digital evidence management

With the proliferation of body-worn cameras, video security systems, cellphone cameras and the like, military police are drowning in digital evidence. As such, it’s critical to have a digital evidence management system (DEMS) that can aggregate and store digital evidence in a central location.

Axon Evidence allows you to store videos, photos, documents and more in a single, secure system. And with intuitive search capabilities, native playback and efficiency tools like AI-based redaction and transcription, Axon Evidence is more than an evidence repository. It’s a time-savings must-have.

Harnessing the power of tech

Axon’s solutions put technology at the center of your operation to improve training, increase officer safety and provide needed transparency. Learn more about Axon’s solutions for the military by contacting us today.

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