Madison police receive federal grants for violence prevention and de-escalation training

The Madison Police Department has been awarded two grants totaling more than $250,000 from the U.S. Department of Justice, according to a Wisconsin State Journal report. The grants from the Office of Community Oriented Policing will be divided between Community Violence Intervention, a program to help youth from violent families break the cycle and of youth violence, and funding the Madison Police Department Training Center to build and maintain its officers’ de-escalation proficiency through a nationally certified, de-escalation, train-the-trainer course, and upgraded virtual reality equipment.