The Florence Police Department started the new year off with a bang – literally.
After the holiday hiatus, Florence PD conducted its firearms qualification and training in an indoor gun range on Monday in Killeen.
Florence Police Chief Wayne Thompson explained that the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement requires agencies to perform on firearms qualification a year. On top of the qualification, the Florence Police Department conducted target practice for different light situations like flash light, police vehicle lighting and strobe lighting.
“We want to spend more time training than actual qualification,” he said. “Qualification is the bare minimum that the state sets for us. With an indoor range, we have the opportunity to train together and with everyone here.”
For the qualification, the officers had to complete a series of shooting challenges with targets at different lengths, ranging from 1.5 yards to 15 yards for both handgun and rifles.
Each officer must complete five rounds of on-duty ammo for the 50-round qualification for the handgun qualification. Officers had to shoot with both their dominant and nondominant hands and certain shooting rounds required a timed component between rounds and reloads.
At the end of the handgun qualification, officers had to score a 175 on their targets in order to pass. Everyone did.
“Overall they did really good,” Chief Thompson said. “They all passed and met the qualification on the first go-around. So that’s a positive and we can get that out of the way for more realistic training scenarios.”
One of the participants was PD Chaplin Dale Moore. Pilot program for the agency, police chaplains are volunteers who provide spiritual counseling to officers and community members for an agency.
The Senior Pastor of Andice Baptist Church, this was Mr. Moore’s first qualification during his eight months of service in FPD.
“I love it,” he said with a chuckle. “It was very educational, very exciting, and I can’t wait to do it again.”
He said the training gave him more confidence, and he is now looking forward to doing more ride-alongs with Florence officers.
“It’s important that I get a little training because this is a very active police department when it comes to making felony arrests,” he said. “It makes me feel a little bit better.”
For intern Lauren Bell, the qualification and training experience was 10/10. A student at Texas A&M, she interned for the City of Florence during her winter break, completing administrative tasks and shadowing law enforcement. She plans on becoming a Texas Ranger in the future.
“It’s pretty cool. It was really interesting to see how they prepare and train,” she said. “I would just encourage people to learn more about their [police] departments and how they operate, so they understand the police side as well as the civilian side.”
As for the rest of the year, the Florence Police Department plans to build on the skills learned during Monday’s training. Chief Thompson said the next training exercises will practice shooting while in motion with vehicles and barricades.
“I think the Florence Police Department has come miles and miles from where it was,” Mr. Moore said. “I think under the current leadership of Chief Thompson and Lieutenant Gutheri, I think the best is still yet to come.”