Gwinnett County officials are celebrating the opening of a $6.2 million, 26,000-square-foot expansion of the police department’s training center.
At a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday, July 31, they said it’s needed to accommodate a growing number of recruits. The expansion includes a large multipurpose room for defensive tactical training and events, three classrooms, locker rooms, and instructor and administrative offices.
Police Chief J.D. McClure said while the expansion has been under construction for two years, the department’s police recruit classes have grown to about 50 recruits per class, with two classes in session for most of the year. And, growing.
“This entire training academy is really state of the art,” McClure said. “Our driving track – most agencies will have to go down to the State of Georgia’s large training academy to get that driver’s training in when we can do all that in-house. Fortunately, on this campus, we have everything that we need.”
The Gwinnett County Police Department has had a police training center for 51 years, and it is one of only five in the state that operates its own training academy. The current facility was built in 2007 on Winder Highway in Lawrenceville using SPLOST funds – or special-purpose local-option sales-tax – meaning it was voted on and approved by voters.
The expansion is now 100% funded from within the police department’s budget.
However, it comes as Atlanta continues to grapple with the debate over its own proposed public safety training center. In recent months, it’s prompted scores of protests, hours of public comment overwhelmingly in opposition and a referendum petition to get it on the ballot.
Gwinnett County Chairwoman Nicole Love Hendrickson said there have always been plans to expand the police department’s facility to train more officers and help meet the needs of a growing county, but she thinks some of the objectives of the “Defund The Police” movement can be achieved without cutting support for law enforcement.
“I think the sentiment around the ‘Defund The Police’ movement really is about reprioritizing funding into other prevention efforts to ensure that we’re investing in some of those root causes,” Hendrickson said. “We’re doing both. This is not an either/or conversation.”
“This is ‘Let’s invest in safe communities,'” she continued. “‘Let’s also invest in ensuring that we can touch on preventing poverty, investing in access to resources for our young people, making sure that they have quality access to recreation.’ So, it’s a both/and conversation. People are drawn to Gwinnett because it’s relatively safe and we want to continue maintaining the safety that people are drawn to.”
The Gwinnett County Police Department is expected to begin construction on a new SWAT and hazardous device training facility early next year.
