Each week, scores of New York Police Department officers are sent to the NYPD’s new $750 million police academy for a three-day refresher course aimed at discouraging verbal abuse and needless physical force.

They’re warned that cynicism, condescension and complacency are a formula for losing their cool in confrontations that can put civilians in harm’s way – and jeopardize their own careers.

The instructors don’t mention Eric Garner. But the case of Garner’s fatal police arrest hangs heavy over the massive undertaking to retrain most of the city’s 35,000 officers in the modern methods for subduing uncooperative suspects.

The Associated Press got an exclusive look at the course, including a demonstration of soon-to-be-introduced role play where officers apply classroom lessons in fake cityscapes that look like a Hollywood sound stage.

(AP)