OPD moving into new training center, one step closer to own police academy

June 18, 2022 | 12:09 am

Updated June 18, 2022 | 12:20 am

OPD training center | Photo by Bella Sailors

The Owensboro Police Department (OPD) is stepping things up with a new police training building at their gun range, which will present many new opportunities for the force according to Lt. Courtney Yerington. They are set to move into the new building this week.

The Owensboro City Commission took their June Work Session on the road to tour the various projects they are funding, one of which is the major upgrade for OPD. 

“We thank the good graces of the city commission for supporting us in this project,” OPD Chief Art Ealum said. “This is beyond expectations.”

The department was previously using a one-room shack with caving floors and no running water to train incoming officers. The new facility has plenty of space and amenities to bring OPD’s goal of eventually having their own police academy closer to reality. 

“With our own academy, the men and women that join our force won’t have to travel and spend 20 weeks away from their families. More and more that becomes a deterrent for people seeking to have law enforcement roles,” Ealum said. “You think of a single mother or father having to be away and be concerned with child care, and it’s detrimental to our cause. So the best thing we could do to combat that would be to provide that training here at OPD so those people can go home at night.”

The leadership team within OPD already has detailed plans for how they will use every bit of their new space for the benefit of the program. There are two main “classroom” type rooms — one of which would house a portable shoot house to give the officers building-clearing training, as well as a firearm simulator. The other classroom would dual function as a place for officers to clean their firearms at the end of a range session.

Yerington explained that having two classrooms as opposed to one will make a large difference. 

“If we were hosting an in-service class in the larger classroom, we can still have our own academy in the smaller room, so we’d have the ability to do both,” Yerington said. 

After walking through the new facility, City Commission members were led to the old building, which Ealum described as a “one-room trailer,” to see for themselves just how big of a change this was for the department. 

“I can’t thank you all enough for being here, because we can’t really appreciate what we have today until we recall every bit of where we came from,” Ealum said.

June 18, 2022 | 12:09 am

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