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Crime & Safety

Critics Say NYPD Needs More Firearms Training: Report

While the training that officers do receive is high quality, it doesn't happen frequently enough Times reports.

Critics say that New York City Police Department recruits and officers receive high-quality firearm training, but it doesn’t happen frequently enough, according to the New York Times.

Outside of the police academy classroom, cadets only practice real-world situations with their firearms for three days, and full-fledged officers only head to Rodman’s Neck – the NYPD’s shooting range in the Bronx – twice a year. A third day is spent at the department’s “Tactical Village,” a mock streetscape where they role-play handling different violent scenarios.

After the November 2006 death of 23-year-old Sean Bell, who was killed by police fire on the night before his wedding day, the NYPD hired the RAND Corporation to investigate their firearms training programs.

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The 2008 report said that between 4,000 recruits and nearly 35,000 officers passing each year through Rodman’s Neck, training had been rushed.

Fortunately, police shootings, and those resulting in fatalities, are rare. According to the department’s Annual Firearms Discharge Report, out of 35,000 officers on the force, only 92 bullets were fired. Of those shootings, 19 led to injuries, and 9 resulted in death.

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Because bullets are rarely fired, the NYPD doesn’t want to spend more money on more training, says the unnamed source at Rodman’s Neck.

But Commissioner Ray Kelly balked at the idea that the budget was the reason for a lack of extra training, and said the police department was doing the best they could with the available resources, according to the Times.

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