Greenfield Police Department officers gets training on how to deal with big city problems.

Located in Southern Monterey County is the city of Greenfield, with a population just over 16,000. More than ever, this rural town is now facing big city problems.

“In the last few months we’ve had a spike in crime here in Greenfield,” said Greenfield Police Sgt. Fred Perez.

So far this year, the city has had three deadly shootings. Just last week a man was shot and killed while sitting in his car.

But Sgt. Perez said Greenfield is not alone.

“It’s throughout South County. It’s in Salinas, it’s everywhere,” said Perez.

One way to prepare officers for potentially dangerous situations is through simulation training.

The way this works is that a real-life scenario is played out on a giant television screen. The officer than communicates with the actors on TV, just as he would if he were there in person.

An example used during Wednesday’s training was a domestic violence call. In the exercise officers arrived on the scene and attempted to approach the suspect. The suspect then walked toward police in a threatening manner, and reached behind his back. The officer in this exercise has to decide how to handle the situation.

“Is he reaching in the back pocket for a wallet? Or is there a gun, or a knife coming out?,” said instructor Dan Gray.

Gray is a retired police officer, and says that on several occasions, he’s had to ask himself those questions in little or no time at all.

“Being able to make those split-second type decisions, that may mean the difference between you or somebody else going home that night. It can be difficult,” said Gray.

Although Greenfield has had several shootings this year. Sgt. Perez said the city has never had an officer-involved shooting and he hopes this training will keep it that way.