News

BRCC administrators endorse training center

By Bill Moss, Published: March 31, 2017

Blue Ridge Community College officials say the proposed law enforcement training center would benefit the college curriculum that trains police officers.
Like many community colleges, BRCC offers Basic Law Enforcement Training, a 744-hour program of 36 required courses dictated by state law. BLET includes classroom work, physical training and firearms qualification. The program, which currently has 19 students, could expand with the use of more space and firing range lanes at the proposed training center.
Like agencies across Western North Carolina, BRCC has struggled to find available shooting ranges where its students can practice and qualify to be a police officer or sheriff’s deputy.
In 2007, the General Assembly allocated $1.9 million for an outdoor shooting range at the Western North Carolina Justice Academy in Edneyville. When neighborhood opposition killed that proposal, the Legislature directed the academy to build an indoor range, which was scaled back to 12 50-yard lanes.
“At that point our training needs were being met,” BRCC President Molly Parkhill said in an interview. But cities and agencies — including Lake Lure and Brevard — have been shutting down outdoor ranges. That has increased the demand at the Justice Academy, which could not schedule BRCC students on its shooting range this spring.
“Our closest one right now is Rutherford,” Parkhill said. “It’s not that the Justice Academy is not being accommodating. They are being accommodating. It’s just that so many law enforcement agencies are facing the same problem in terms of accessibility and scheduling, and I know that’s the sheriff’s concern as well. He does not have access to meet his training needs for his large staff.”
BRCC’s law enforcement program also offers continuing education for police officers and deputies. State law requires all sworn officers to qualify every year on all weapons they carry and to complete combat course training.
“We are not doing in-service training because we don’t have the facility anymore,” Parkhill said. “To be able to do basic law enforcement training we have to have a firing range. The sheriff is looking at his training needs, we’re looking at our training needs and how we’re going to be able to prepare the work force in law enforcement.”
BRCC has had a less than ideal approach to physical training, too, said Parkhill and Sherry Phillips, director of law enforcement training at BRCC.
BRCC had allocated $700,000 for a metal building that would be used for the Police Officers Physical Abilities Test, or POPAT.
“That was our biggest pressing need,” Parkhill said. After BRCC’s Board of Trustees identified physical training space as a priority, Parkhill and County Manager Steve Wyatt began meeting on how the college and the county could “create a facility that would meet both our needs,” she said. “We diverted our $700,000, which was bond money, toward our advanced manufacturing and automotive systems technology program,” which is growing fast.
Because it holds POPAT training outdoors, BRCC is handicapped by bad weather and high heat index numbers, which means calling off class. Using it outside on asphalt is ruining a $1,000 drag dummy, Phillips said.
“Because we will have the POPAT course indoors with showers and locker rooms we’ll be able to conduct PT (physical training) in the mornings as opposed to after class. That’s how we’re currently doing that,” she said. “The state criminal justice standards states that a student must shower before going into class if PT is in the morning. Our PT instructor has been wanting to do that because it’s more conducive for physical exercise before class than it is after. Also, with the use of the POPAT we can use that same area for our subject control techniques.” Currently, BRCC has had to schedule that training at the Justice Academy’s gym. “The new facility would be a huge benefit” for subject control and arrest training, known as SCAT.
The Board of Trustees endorsed the law enforcement training center design in January. The college is getting calls about the training center and questions about why it would allow a shooting range next to the new Innovative High School. Parkhill said college officials have looked into the noise issue.
“Based on the research that has been provided to us, you’re not going to be able to hear anything,” she said.