Budget cuts muffle brouhaha over police firing range

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Budget cuts muffle brouhaha over police firing range

By Patrick Anderson
Staff Writer


Gunfire at the city's unregulated West Gloucester shooting range won't be rattling neighbors this year now that budget cuts have put an indefinite end to police target practice.

Closed in December after years of noise complaints, the shooting range on the banks of Haskell Reservoir appeared ready to re-open for limited shooting sessions this month with new rules crafted during months of negotiations between neighbors and police.

But before a final agreement could be reached to re-open the range, the Police Department was hit, like the rest of city departments, with a cost-cutting wave of induced early retirements.

Down four patrolmen and two lieutenants, police Chief John Beaudette told the mayor's office that he would need additional money for overtime to get all the officers firearms training while having enough manpower to protect the city.

The request for more money was denied by Mayor Carolyn Kirk's office and the range was shut down, Chief Administrative Officer Jim Duggan said.

Now, efforts to codify the rules surrounding the use of the firing range are on hold. It is unclear when Gloucester police officers will start firearms training again.

For West Gloucester residents who said they had been unnerved by the sound of gun shots ringing through their homes, the indefinite closure has provided a measure of relief.

"I think it is good news," Eric Holdsworth of Walker Street said yesterday. "We were ready to compromise, but no shooting is good."

For a police department that has placed a heavy emphasis on weapons training in the past, the closure is a setback.

"We have fought as hard as we can to keep it going," Lt. Joseph Aiello said yesterday. "Now, with the depleted force, it is impossible."

State guidelines for police training include a minimum of 15 days per year of firearms training for each officer, with 30 days being the recommended amount.

Cities and towns do not face any sanctions for training, but Aiello said that by not following the recommendations, the Gloucester force could be more vulnerable to lawsuits if a controversial shooting should occur in the city.

"(The training) is not law, but if you have an incident and end up in court, it is going to be more difficult to defend an officer," Aiello said.

Like the Fire Department, reductions in manpower in recent years combined with the Kirk administration's decision to limit overtime use have made it difficult for police to complete training while honoring all the officers' collectively-bargained vacation, personal and sick days off.

The West Gloucester shooting range sprang up in 1992 in the woods along the side of the Haskell Reservoir with little or no known permitting after the Police Department was asked to leave its former practice area at the Cape Ann Sportsman's Club.

In the early years, shooting at the range by Gloucester Police took place without objection, but that changed when people from outside the department began using it.

In 2004, shortly after it became part of the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Coast Guard began using the range for training.

The Coast Guard helped clean up spent cartridge cases and bullets on the range, made repairs to the berm that shots were fired into and made other safety improvements, Aiello said. Coasties from throughout Sector Boston came to the range to practice shooting assault rifles.

At that point, the auditory disturbance caused by rifle and shotgun reports — at a variety of times during the day and night — caused residents to band together and call for a halt to the shooting.

In addition to the Coast Guard, state and regional law enforcement agencies began using the site for training.

Gloucester police Sgt. William Leanos, a top state firearms trainer, has taught other state trainers at the West Gloucester range.

When City Council voted to shut down the range on an emergency basis in December, concerns about whether Gloucester was not being sufficiently compensated for the use of its facility were added to noise concerns.

Potential environmental damage caused to the soil or reservoir from lead had also been an issue.

Reacting to the outcry by residents, the Coast Guard stopped using the West Gloucester range last summer. All talks about reopening the range have focused on it being only for local police use.

According to Aiello, conditions to re-open the range that the Police Department had agreed to included no shooting on weekends and holidays, during the summer, by outside agencies, and without prior community notification. Another condition was that no sessions can begin after 9 p.m. or last after 10 p.m.

The department had requested shooting for 15 days in the spring and 15 days in the fall.

Police would also have had to develop an environmental plan to deal with the used bullets.

To bring the range within a legal framework, City Council was working on an ordinance to govern shooting, but has put that work on hold since police have decided not to try to reopen it.

Aiello said yesterday that the Police Department still places a high value on training and would try to resume shooting in West Gloucester as soon as it became feasible and could be done in a manner acceptable to the neighborhood.

"We hope to continue, but it had become ad versa rial and that was not the point," Aiello said. "We did not want to run the risk of making enemies of the residents."

Patrick Anderson may be contacted at [email protected].
 
It's a good thing police only arrive to clean up bodies and dust for finger prints anyway and have no need to use their guns.
 
I'm the first to shit on NIMBY's, but this is different. It appears from the OP that this "range" did not exist when the complainers bought their homes. If this range popped up with no chance for neighbors to give input, they have a right to complain. What I can't stand are folks who move near airports and ranges that have existed for 50+ years, paying the going rate for a home in that area, and then try to close the offensive item so they can raise their property values.
 
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