News

Commissioners OK $20M law enforcement training center

By Bill Moss, Published: October 2, 2016

The Henderson County Board of Commissioners on Monday committed to a $20 million law enforcement training center at Blue Ridge Community College, buying into Sheriff Charlie McDonald's view that today's training lags behind the threat level from terrorism, anti-cop violence and domestic crime in an unsettled world.

McDonald has advocated strongly for the facility to provide tactical training, driving simulation, a backup 911 center and other features on an acre under roof at Blue Ridge Community College.

McDonald faced few questions and no pushback from commissioners, who had committed to the capital plan and devoted 1-cent of a 5-cent property tax increase to it when they adopted the current budget last June. 

The county plans to borrow for construction, setting aside $1.281 million a year in debt payments at 2.8 percent interest for 20 years. That annual debt service is just $2,000 less than the projected revenue from a penny on the tax rate — $1.283 million. 

"Are there other facilities like this in Western North Carolina or the Upstate of South Carolina or are we plowing new ground so to speak?" Commissioner Bill Lapsley asked. County officials visited a training center in Forsyth County that would be similar to the one here, although at 27,000 square feet it was roughly half as big. 

"We've gone from a $5 million plus or minus outdoor facility to a $20 million indoor facility. I think the public would be concerned if we spent $20 million and had a building out there that was only being used one day a week," Lapsley added, urging the sheriff do all he could to attract paying customers from outside the county. 

Lapsley estimated that debt service plus operating cost would cost taxpayers roughly $1.5 million a year. "It seems to me on a $200,000 piece of property that's about $30 we're asking and I don't think that's too much," he said. 

"I know there will be a lot of questions once they see the numbers," Commissioner Charlie Messer said, adding that it's important to partner with BRCC and outside agencies to increase the use.

County Manager Steve Wyatt said officials from surrounding counties have asked him about using the facility, raising the possibility of a revenue stream. 

Commissioner Michael Edney brought up architectural fees, which have become an issue in the context of school construction and the HHS controversy. The design fee, at 7.5 percent of the construction cost, "is significantly below your typical fee for this type of structure," County Engineer Marcus Jones said.

One asset of the county's ongoing architect, Lapsley said, is that Clark Nexsen has an office in Roanoke, Va., that designed a law enforcement training facility at the level Henderson County is building. 

Commissioners unanimously authorized $1.3 million in architects fees for Clark Nexsen, the county’s architect of record, and OK'd $19.9 million overall for the project. The  49,000-square-foot facility will include 12 100-yard shooting lanes and 12 lanes 50 yards deep. Design would take 10 months followed by a one-year construction schedule and completion in August 2018.

"I see this as really a synergistic effort" that meets needs of BRCC and the sheriff's office, Commissioner Grady Hawkins said. "We get a backup 911 center and that can be critical depending on the situation we could be faced with... I will tell you, from 25 years of military experience, we trained every day. There's no substitute for realistic training. I think we can afford it. I think we cannot afford not to afford it."

The indoor facility is a far more expensive alternative to an outdoor range that McDonald first proposed. In the summer of 2015 and again last spring the sheriff identified large pieces of property for a firing range and tactical training center. Commissioners unanimously rejected a site in Green River, then signaled that they opposed a second site on Pinnacle Mountain near DuPont State Forest. Commissioners then invited McDonald to come back with an indoor option.
“We could have built that outdoor range and could have done everything we needed in the foreseeable future for about $3 million,” McDonald said. “And I told the commissioners if we can’t get something outdoors it’s going to cost a whole lot more to do it indoors. Right now officers are being ambushed in vehicles. We need to be able to teach guys how to respond out of a vehicle to engage a threat, how to respond around a vehicle. Just standing there on a range isn’t good enough…. That’s why this range is going to cost so much. It’s got to be big enough that we can drive vehicles into. This training is not just for the Henderson County sheriff’s office. I can see where we’ll be able to do training with our firefighters, first responders, who may be moving with us into a hostile environment. We need to make things as realistic as we possibly can so when they are engaged in a real life scenario they’re somewhat familiar with how it’s going to be.”
McDonald’s comments came in a wide-ranging interview several weeks ago in which he strongly defended the need for more advanced training in the context of threats from terrorism, attacks on law officers and domestic crime situations such as school shootings.
“We find ourselves in situations that are much more complex than we’ve ever seen, even when I was on SWAT 20 years ago,” he said. “School shootings — when I was on SWAT the worst thing we ever had to deal with was maybe an armed, barricaded suspect with a hostage. Now we’re having to train guys to go into schools, engage people with rifles. You don’t do that very effectively with a Glock pistol.
“That means we have to arm our guys with a weapon that reaches out further and for the most part in law enforcement it’s an AR-15 platform, which is a high-powered rifle. It takes a lot more skill to practically and safely use that weapon, particularly in combat situations. When you’ve got an officer shooting a round that moves at 3,200 feet per second and will penetrate drywall and doors and steel studs and everything else, you better damn sure make sure that that officer knows how to hit his target. Shooting a target in a static range you can no way replicate what it’s like to shoot in an environment where you’re actually taking rounds, you’re hearing screams and noises and you’re having to move in conjunction with partners — maybe your agency, maybe not. … You need to understand the dynamics of that kind of combat that used to be reserved mostly for the military but now law enforcement finds itself in all the time.”

'We don't train enough'

As McDonald sees it, law officers need training that’s as sophisticated as the some of the advanced military training, because even Hendersonville could see an ISIS type attack, as San Bernandino, Calif., did.
“Law enforcement is at a place where we don’t want to be militarized, we wish we didn’t face the threat we’re facing but we’re facing military tactics, military type weapons, and in the case of ISIS — and they are here,” he said. “I believe they are here, and they will strike on their time, whether it’s in Henderson County or some place else — we’re going to be facing a sophisticated enemy that knows how to fire and move to draw in to ambush and invade and our guys need to know how to fight out of that and how to live and how to come home. I’m telling you, we’re going to see more loss of life in the days ahead. I could have told you that five years ago. Nobody would listen. We don’t train near enough.”
The kind of training McDonald envisions would help not only Henderson County deputies but police departments in the county and potentially beyond. The sheriff’s office plans to partner with BRCC to offer a Basic Law Enforcement Training, a program many community colleges offer that train police officers for entry level jobs. In McDonald’s view, the state requirements are not nearly as advanced as today’s threats require.
“The state qualifications are about the same as taking the CCW (carry and concealed weapon) to prepare a citizen for armed confrontation,” he said. “It is not enough. Courts have held that qualifications in and of itself don’t count as training and training that is not done with an eye towards realism is no training at all. We’re negligent if we’re not training people realistically to deal with the threats that we can reasonably expect that they’re going to be dealing with — whether they’re driving vehicles or effecting arrest or serving a search warrant.
“Whatever do we do we have to do it in a way that says we’re training them to the anticipated threat level they’re going to be dealing with. We don’t have the facilities to do that.”

Justice Academy inadequate, sheriff says

People question why the state police academy that serves Western North Carolina is not a usable alternative. The Justice Academy can't offer the kind of live-fire combat simulation officers need.
“It’s so small and limited the realism is rather limited,” he said. “It will allow us to train with other law enforcement agencies, with fire and rescue, with EMS and it’ll allow us to spend the time we need with remedial shooters. … We need something that allows us more than one-dimensional shooting. We need to be able to fire at least 180 degrees so we know what it’s like to protect our flank while we’re moving in to rescue a downed officer or a kid from a parking lot in a school.
“Look at what the military spends on training, and people say, ‘well, you’re just law enforcement.’ Yeah, we are, and we’ve been forced into a position that we shouldn’t have to deal with but nonetheless we have to deal with it.”
On top of a new school construction that could top $80 million and a new emergency services headquarters that will cost $15 million, the commissioners will be asked to commit $20 million for the training center. McDonald understands the public may wince at the price. But he says taxpayers ultimately want law enforcement personnel to be as highly trained as necessary to keep people safe.
“This isn’t the Charlie McDonald Taj Mahal,” he said. “This isn’t something I’m doing for me. This is something that’s a need and a necessity. I think Henderson County needs to take the lead whether anybody else does it or not. Just because other counties around here can’t afford or won’t give their folks what they need to be able to properly protect the citizens I don’t think that’s any excuse for us not to do it. Whether anybody else does it or not I don’t think anybody can argue that it’s a valid need.”