Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office Unveils New Training Center

The Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office showed off its new Training Center on March 22, as retired lawmen with a total of more than 1,100 years of law enforcement experience visited the facility for the annual Old Timers Shoot.

Sheriff Scott Chitwood could hardly get in the door that morning before hearing several compliments on the 5,000-square-foot building from many of the 42 participants getting their first look at the facility.

“Just moving through the crowd when I got here, greeting everybody,” Chitwood said, “many compliments were floating through the room. They were saying, ‘Gosh, this is just the best, it is the nicest facility.’ So we’ve certainly got a stamp of approval from everybody that’s come through the door.”

The old timers – who were on hand to renew their federal concealed weapons carry permit, an annual process that requires them to fire several rounds at targets from several distances, including 25 yards, 15  yards, 7 yards, and 3  yards – got an added bonus by seeing the new building.

Normally, the old timers - who represented retired officers from Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office, Dalton Police Department, Motor Carrier Compliance Division, Georgia State Patrol, Cohutta Police Department, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Immigrations Customs Enforcement, Department of Corrections, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, Roswell Police Department, East Ellijay Police Department, Atlanta Police Department, and U.S. Customs – have to listen to a use of force course. This year, though, they also had to listen to a course on “de-escalation,” as ordered by Gov. Nathan Deal.

“This year, the state’s pushed toward community policing and de-escalation, which should help give them some skills if they were ever to be put in a use of force scenario, hopefully maybe talk through it a little bit more and maybe try to bring things down before it gets to the point where use of force is required,” said Lt. Juan Martinez, who took over as training coordinator for Phillip Herren, who retired last year.

Sgt. Shawn Giles presented the two courses in the new building, which is located on Old Prater’s Mill Road and features a large meeting room, a kitchen, offices, and restrooms, along with high-tech features like three projectors that shine information on two screens in front of the students and one screen behind them to help instructors maintain eye contact with their audience.

“We broke ground last August, so here we are in March to the degree where we are right now,” the sheriff said. “We’ve still got a little miscellaneous landscaping and signage to put up, but the beauty of it is it was all built with drug seizure funds. It’s not cost the county one dime or the taxpayers – we let the drug offenders pay for it.”

Chitwood thanked Whitfield County Public Works for taking care of site preparation, and once the skeleton of the metal building was put up by a subcontractor, Sgt. Tracy Davis took over and supervised inmate work crews, taking care of the interior construction like plumbing, wiring, Sheetrock, dropped ceilings, security system, sound system, and projectors.

“Tracy is a very talented individual,” Chitwood said. “Under his supervision with the trustees doing the manual labor, this is the end result.”

Construction has been complete for about two months, and the facility has already hosted several groups, including sniper training from helicopters by the Georgia State Patrol and Tennessee Highway Patrol.

“I think it was one of the guys from Tennessee Highway Patrol who told me he had been to local facilities, state facilities, and federal facilities, and ours is the nicest facility he’s ever stepped foot in,” the sheriff said, “so it was a nice compliment coming from somebody literally on the outside.”

That’s not surprising, though, since Chitwood said his staff took their time thinking about what they wanted, comparing it to other facilities in the area.

“Everybody said, hey, why don’t we do this and this and this?” he said. “We’ve got wi-fi connection up here, and cable if we need it.”

The sheriff paused and pointed to a screen in the kitchen area. “That’s what Shawn is teaching in there right now,” he said. “While someone might be on a break in here, he can still watch so it’s just like sitting in the classroom in there. I think we’ve pretty well covered all the bases for what we’ve got.”

Chitwood said he expects the facility to be well used. “We have training going on a lot,” he said, “and Dalton PD was up here three times last week. Lt. Martinez put out a schedule, and I’m gonna say 20 days out of the month, Monday through Friday, we’ll probably have stuff going 15 out of 20 days. So it’s already booked a lot.”

The sheriff says there is nothing like the Whitfield County facility around these parts. “Murray County’s got a firing range, Catoosa does, of course we do, Walker County does, so a lot of people have a firing range where you can qualify. But as far as an actual building like this, you can’t match this,” he said. “You’d have to go, just to come close, to Atlanta.”

The $300,000 cost of the facility, which has space for at least 150 attendees, was paid for entirely with drug seizure funds, the sheriff said, noting that the funds also paid to renovate other buildings at the site, including the old, much smaller training facility, the firing range, the shooting house where instructors can oversee activity, and paving of the new much larger parking lot. Eventually, a picnic area and pavilion may be built at the site when funds are available.

“Anytime we seize money found during drug seizures,” Chitwood explained, “that money comes back to the department by law. I don’t have to turn that over – any police chief – we don’t have to turn that over to our commissioners or city council. When the officers seize drugs, cash, the money can go into a special fund that can be used for anything except salaries and bonuses. It’s typically used for training purposes.”

In addition, in the past, the funds have been used to buy computers, patrol cars, bulletproof vests, and weapons.

The sheriff praised Marcus Boring and his family for donating the land for the facility.

For nearly 30 years, Jim and Kenneth Boring had allowed the sheriff’s office to use about 10 acres of their land for the training facility for $1 a year. After the two men passed away, the family decided just to donate the land to the county so that improvements could be made to the facilities there.

“We can’t thank Marcus Boring enough for his generosity and contributions to the success that we’ve got,” the sheriff said.

The Boring family’s donation will pay dividends for county residents for years to come, Chitwood said, noting that his officers have to take a minimum of 20 hours of training per year “to stay on top of everything.”

“It’s just a continuous thing throughout the year,” the sheriff said. “The guys come up and continue to qualify with their firearms just to stay sharp with them, and when laws change, we have to instruct them. We’re also going to a new computer system in the cars, and we’ll have a couple of classes up here with instructors teaching the patrol officers - this is how you use it in the cars.

“I think anybody would tell you that training is just an ongoing thing for law enforcement,” he said. “I know as sheriff, we go to three training conferences a year. But the officers themselves, they’re always going for updates, so training’s definitely a non-stop, continuous, year-round thing.”

Word about the new facility is already starting to spread to surrounding communities, too, and Chitwood says they are being allowed to use it under county supervision.

The sheriff ranks the completion of the training center as one of the major accomplishments during his six terms as sheriff.

“We’re proud of the department, we’ve got good, professional officers, and I’ve been blessed to be in the position I’m in,” Chitwood said. “but this would probably be one of the better accomplishments that we’ve had during my tenure. Of course, we moved into the new jail at the current location from the old facility on Waugh Street, so that was a major deal. But to expand this training center, yeah, it’s just another ‘Good job, guys.’ This is something that everybody can be proud of.”