Dallas Police Hope $443M Bond Ends Decades in Temporary Training Facility
What to Know
- Dallas police recruits are still training in a warehouse that was intended as temporary space three decades ago.
- A $443 million bond package would put about $82 million toward a new police academy and $149 million toward an outdoor training complex.
- Officials say cramped facilities have forced instructors to improvise training spaces as the roughly 3,400-police officer department prepares to add hundreds more.
Assistant Chief Israel Herrera remembers when the building where Dallas trains its police recruits had a reception desk. It was 1996.
Now, the lobby is a makeshift office, packed with cubicles. The police academy is still housed in the same Red Bird warehouse building that was supposed to be temporary three decades ago.
Police officers are promised a training facility at the University of North Texas at Dallas, but they’re wondering what happens if voters reject a $443 million bond package that would fund a new academy.
If approved, five public safety facilities would get new funding. About $82 million would go to the academy and another $149 million is for an outdoor training complex at the Dallas Executive Airport.
Supporters and the city’s largest police and fire pension associations want voters to approve the projects, saying this is the city’s chance to upgrade several deteriorating facilities.
Opponents believe money from the bond will be used to abandon the I.M. Pei-designed City Hall. Instead, they want Dallas voters to reject the November bond package and are pushing for a May election with the police academy as the sole item to consider.
In the middle are police officers who have been waiting to get out of the temporary training space for decades. They hope the facilities will help match the growing staffing numbers for the next couple decades.
About 3,400 officers make up the force, and the city is budgeting for hundreds more by October 2027.
The department is “not asking for anything fancy,” said Deputy Chief Stephen Williams, who oversees internal affairs and training standards.
In the current space, instructors and officers have found a method to the madness — improvising coffee stations between walls of folders and lockers.
Instructors struggle to schedule key technical courses and are making do with the equipment they have. Officers bought wood from a home improvement store a couple years ago to build their own reality-based training rooms in a warehouse for in-service officers.
There, they practice maneuvers and formations to respond to an active shooter and “learn to fail” so they don’t when it counts the most, Williams said.
For recruits, that training requires doubling up classrooms and using gym mats to create fake walls.
New training facilities
The bond package includes money for the new police academy and for a separate training complex.
Law Enforcement Training Center includes two classroom buildings and a 94,000-square-foot training building.
- The construction cost is $227 million. Voters approved $50 million in the 2024 bond. The project received $25 million from the state and $70 million from private donors.
Public Safety Training Complex includes a new 60-acre outdoor facility, which includes a vehicle driving course, obstacle course and a firearm range.
- It’s estimated to cost $170 million. The city is using $15 million from the aviation department’s budget and has secured $6 million in sponsorships.
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