CRESTVIEW — Where trespassing hunters recently saw a pleasant woodland crisscrossed by animal trails, Crestview Police Department officers appreciate the same wilderness, but also see its potential to serve multiple training functions, and not just for the police.
During a recent site inspection that involved climbing over fallen limbs, wandering through glades and clearings, and pushing through sometimes dense brush, officers envisioned a training range offering onsite facilities for far more than its original intent as a shooting range.
“You can set up a SWAT and K-9 course out here,” investigator and Special Operations training Officer Shawn Temple said.
“We actually received almost 30 acres,” Police Chief Tony Taylor said shortly after the City Council’s unanimous December approval of his request to use the land for officer training.
Cmdr. Andrew Schneider, who heads the agency’s Training and Special Operations division, said the city-owned land, east of Crestview’s wastewater treatment plant off Rasberry Road, could be configured to house several training facilities:
• A 20-lane, 50-yard pistol range with double targets
• A concurrent 100-yard rifle range with at least five firing stations
• A permanent physical abilities test (P.A.T.) course: Currently the agency must set up and take down a course in Spanish Trail Park whenever the test is run.
• A K-9 training course, possibly shared with the department’s Special Weapons and Tactics —SWAT—team
• A physical fitness training track with exercise stations.
As Temple, Schneider and Investigator Chaise Rawles explored the new range site, using a GPS satellite map as a guide, the officers imagined how, following the development of a master plan for the site, the land could house these and potentially more activities happening simultaneously.
Remarking on the site’s natural woodland beauty, the officers agreed that trees and other foliage should be retained as much as possible to serve as buffers between the different training areas and also to help delineate each activity.
Stringing up “Police Line: Do Not Cross” tape at access points hunters used to enter the property, Schneider, Rawls and Temple also used the site inspection as an opportunity to alert trespassers that they would henceforth be intruding on Police Department-controlled land.
Taylor said he and Crestview Fire Chief Joe Taylor have held preliminary discussions about erecting a training tower on the site, possibly as tall as four stories, that would be shared by both public safety departments.
From the tower, police officers could practice special operations techniques such as repelling while firefighters could train to combat fires in multi-story buildings, “but obviously not simultaneously,” Taylor said, laughing.
“The firing range is our most urgent need,” Taylor said, noting that currently, his officers must take their twice-annual firearms qualifications tests at available ranges in other jurisdictions because the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s range just outside of Crestview’s city limits is heavily used by multiple law enforcement agencies.
Following an upcoming survey of the property, Schneider and his team will prepare a site plan for the shooting range and its safety bunkers, which Taylor, after discussion with Public Works Director Wayne Steele, believes can be constructed by city staff.
“The other facilities can be added over the years as resources and money become available,” Taylor said. “The shooting range is our number one priority.”
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview Police scout shooting range location