York Town News
Lack of target range and station space puts police in a tight spot
By Melissa Wood
LOOKING FOR A HOME AND A RANGE. The York Police Department, still waiting for a new home, needs a new shooting range as well. A reduction in area range availabilities has left the town’s police officers without a reliable location for required training and practice. Here, Field Training Officer Owen Davis handles a Benelli 12-gauge shotgun, one of several types of firearms utilized by the York police.
Photo by Steve Rasche
YORK - As the York Police Department marks another year in a station that was called a temporary solution when the department first moved there in 1981, its chief is also searching for ways to accommodate state-mandated weapons training for the 27 full-time and dozen part-time officers who have no access to a shooting range in the local area for target practice.
The solution, so far, has been sending officers - mostly while paying overtime - to various locations in southern Maine. But available ranges are growing scarcer as those towns face growth pressures of their own.
Recently, police have lost two options. Along with a range in Wells that shut down, another shooting range in Biddeford where officers used to practice is also unavailable because of newly built subdivisions in the area.
"We're at the will of other communities right now," said York Police Chief Douglas Bracy.
This year they've used Sanford's range at the airport and practiced night firing at the old landfill off Witchtrot Road near the South Berwick line, which is also close to a residential area and golf course. He said the nearby residents are notified before the police use it for target practice.
Bracy explained that that the members of the police force have to take certificate courses that are mandated by the Maine Criminal Justice Academy, which requires the training at least twice a year.
"In many cases, if we see the need, we might go out three or four times a year," said Bracy, who added he is hoping a better solution can be found once the town builds a new police station, at a date still to be determined.
Costs are also added on from not having an available space for target practice, he said.
"It costs us thousands of dollars to do a certification process. We have to pay overtime in many cases, sometimes two to three hours for the travel time and the target practice time," he explained.
Officers are required to carry their weapons in situations where a "command-level presence" is mandated, such as barricaded subjects and bank robberies - and part of being ready is being able to use those firearms if the threat level is there, Bracy said.
The York Police Department uses three different types of weapons: 40-caliber Glock handguns are carried by all officers; Benelli 12-gauge shotguns are carried in all patrol vehicles, and Bushmaster .223-caliber long rifles are carried in several of the duty cars and support vehicles.
"Any time we're in a felony stop situation the guns are drawn," said Bracy.
Bracy explained that some of the long rifles require ranges of 1,000 yards or more, which means a lot of outdoor, sheltered space or indoor ranges with special mats that can accommodate those big blasts.
"The fact is we don't really have a long-term solution in the area for this," said Bracy.
The chief said he's hoping that one can be found for York or the region as the town thinks about possibilities for a new police station, something that he calls a "10" in priority.
"We've crammed a lot of people into a very small place," said Bracy.
The 3,800-square-foot station is home to 60 employees. That square footage includes the basement, which houses locker rooms and storage and was flooded during the May 2006 Mother's Day storm, destroying files and records that cannot be replaced.
But most importantly, Bracy said, the station doesn't pass the "straight face test" when it comes to safety.
"A lot of times we have defendants, victims and witnesses in here at the same time," he said, making it difficult for police to conduct private interviews when investigating a case - especially since the interview room is not soundproof. "There's really no way you can do that in this building."
He said that when a group of people are arrested - such as in the case of an underage drinking party - those people are squeezed into the station, often handcuffed while sitting in chairs as there is only one detention cell, which contains a bench and a pole that handcuffs can be attached to. If a suspect is out of control, it is police policy to take them out of town to the county jail in Alfred.
"We've had four building committees since the early 1990s, all of which have determined that the police station should be the number one priority for the town," Bracy said.
In that same time, York voters have rejected proposals to buy the property near the intersection of Route 1 and Route 91, which is now home to the York Village Business Center project, and to buy and renovate the Central Maine Power Building on Route 1, for about $600,000 and $900,000, respectively - prices that would be hard to find now with both land and construction costs going up, Bracy said.
He said that, ideally, a new station would be about 20,000 square feet in size on a five- to six-acre parcel that would provide enough room for parking and storm water drainage. He said the town has looked at 16 to 18 properties over the last year. Although most were ruled out due to code issues, three or four options still remain.
Bracy said along with looking at shooting range possibilities, the department could also capitalize on its successful work to date on becoming a regional dispatch center, serving the towns of Ogunquit, South Berwick and Berwick, and soon Kittery and Eliot. He's afraid the town may miss that window of opportunity if the state pushes for more consolidation before the station can handle it.
"My frustration is the longer we wait, the more it costs us," he said.
