Cape Coral police want new training facility

Reporter: Nicole Lauren
Published: Updated:
Cape Coral Police Department Headquarters. Credit: WINK News.

The ability to respond to incidents quickly and forcefully is the reason Cape Coral’s mayor is pushing for a new tactical training facility in the city.

They want a gun range so officers can easily train to make life or death decisions.

Right now, Cape Coral police department pays $250,000 per year to use a different facility for training, but it takes officers close to 40 minutes to reach the facility.

Time and resources that could be cut in half if there was a facility closer to the department.

Not to mention, right now, 21 other municipalities are using the same gun range.

The new facility would be both indoors and outdoor. The 15 acre piece of property would have a gun range, K-9 training, and also classrooms for training as well as offices.

Since 2009, Cape Coral police noted there were 9 officer involved shootings, and 20 officers discharges their firearm.

Those are the types of situations this new facility could better prepare these officers for.

mayor Joe Coviello says if this could benefit the city’s safety, and the performance of the officers, it would be money well spent.

“You know the training is pretty unique, it’s not just standing in front of a station and shooting. It’s moving, it’s getting behind cars, it’s at night it could be dark there’s so many different variables that our officers need to be trained for,” Mayor Coviello said.

If approved the project would cost a total of $6.5-million dollars, and it would come out of an  account that already has $6.9-million in it, earned through the Cape Coral impact fees.

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