Police Department Wraps up Citizens Academy

The students of the 2025 Hampton Police Citizens Academy had their final class at Ellsworth Community College on Wednesday evening, March 26, where they went through a gun simulator course called "MILO." 

The course was led by Mike Emerson, who serves as the Mayor of Iowa Falls and the Dean of Student Affairs at Ellsworth Community College. Emerson told the Chronicle that he’s always happy to offer the class to citizens' academies, as it gives civilians insight into how police officers are trained and why they make the decisions that they make. 

The class started with Emerson giving students an overview of how the MILO program works. He explained that while county attorneys and others may have the time to analyze whether a person should have been shot at, police officers only have seconds to react in many situations. According to MILO’s website, “Immersive, emotionally vivid MILO simulations prepare officers to identify, process, and comprehend information about how to respond to any situation, whether it requires the use of their firearm or not.”

Hampton Police Captain Mike Halsne and Iowa Falls Police Officer David Frank showed students how they would handle different use-of-force scenarios, which were displayed on a large screen with a projector. Students took turns going through the different scenarios, giving verbal commands before eventually “shooting” at the suspects. 

Student Andrea DeGroote told the Chronicle this was her favorite class, as it gave her an idea of what police officers go through in use-of-force situations. 

“It made me realize that officers have to respond instantly,” she said. “You don’t think of that. That would be hard. Even standing up there and trying to do it, you hesitate. And they can’t.” 

DeGroote, who works as a sexual assault advocate for Crisis Intervention Service (CIS), said she enjoyed the four-week academy, in general, and would recommend it to others. 

Captain Halsne, who coordinated the citizens academy, said he was pleased with how it went. He said the students always enjoy the gun simulator class, so he was glad they could make it happen. (It had to be rescheduled due to bad weather.) Halsne thanked the students for taking the time to attend and County Attorney Andrea Miller for being there. 

“It’s nice to have the county attorney with us at these classes, because she can maybe answer some questions that we can’t,” he said. “It adds to the experience.” 

A brief graduation ceremony will be held for the students at the April 10 Hampton City Council meeting.