Brought to you by WBIW News and Network Indiana
Last updated on Monday, September 29, 2014
(LINTON) - A crowd gathered Saturday afternoon to watch the ribbon cutting ceremony for renovations at shooting range located at the Linton Fraternal Order of Police lodge.
The Greene County Daily World spoke to the President of the FOP and Linton Police Officer Paul Clark who says over the last 10 to 12 years, members from the of the FOP have tried to make upgrades to the range.
"We didn't do much other than putting a bandaid over a gunshot wound," he added. "The police were being out gunned by the criminals," said Clark and he also cited a bank shooting in the late nineties when police were out-gunned and had to buy more firepower to get the proper weapons to handle the situation.
"Local law enforcement has been really good at staying ahead of the curve in terms of weapons, but we still did not have an adequate place to train."
Around late October, awareness was made for an upgrade at their facilities.
Two officers from the Greene County Sheriff's Office, Lt. Bryan Woodall and Det. George Dallaire, and Officer Andrew Duguay from the Jasonville Police Department, are certified firearms instructors and have used the range in the past to conduct their training sessions.
In light of the aftermath of a shooting in Owensburg involving two Sheriff deputies from Greene County two years ago, Clark explained that Nicole Stahl, formerly of the Greene County Prosecutor's Office, and the Greene County Drug Task Force began to raise funds to create a new range for officers from all over the county to train.
Many individuals and organizations gave donations for the upgrades at the shooting range and include the Greene County Foundation, the NRA provided a grant, Cabela's also provided an additional grant, REMC, Crime Stoppers, and the FOP.
"We ended up with around $20,000 worth of donations for the range which is tremendous," said Clark.
The remodeling project began early in the spring of 2014 and Linton Police Officer Debbie McDonald-Miller helped to springboard the project by becoming the project director.
Becky, David and Preston Reed helped by providing both equipment and labor for the range.
"They did the bulk of the work with their equipment. They gave that selflessly and we can't thank them enough."
Both the city of Linton and Jasonville donated equipment for the range.
Brian Ward helped by setting the concrete at the range.
Brian Oliver, shop teacher at Linton-Stockton, and his class, helped to construct the shooting tables at the range.
The benches were purchased from the Department of Corrections and were manufactured by offenders.
Most of the materials were bought locally in an effort to keep the money spent in the area.
"The important thing to remember is that when we started this, we did not just want to make this a law enforcement training facility, we wanted it be a place where the youth of the community could have a safe and responsible place where people can learn firearm safety.
The Boy Scouts and 4H shooting club has been deeply involved in this effort."
1340 AM WBIW welcomes comments and suggestions by calling 812.277.1340 during normal business hours or by email at comments@wbiw.com
© Ad-Venture Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.