The firing range where Dallas police officers train to shoot looks, by the department’s own admission, like it’s been forgotten. Chipped paint, cracked wood, a rusted ammunition storage structure — and on the day the city’s newest police chief walked in for the first time, he was mortified.
“Once I got hired, I had to go qualify day one that I got here. And I was embarrassed about my firing range. And that was my first day on the job. I couldn’t believe that the city of Dallas had a firing range that looked the way it looked,” said Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux.
That moment of embarrassment is now driving a $250 million question that Dallas voters may soon have to answer. City officials are proposing a sweeping bond package to fund two brand-new police training facilities — a rebuilt academy in partnership with UNT Dallas and a tactical training complex at Dallas Executive Airport. The city council is expected to take up the measure in June. At stake, officials say, isn’t just aesthetics. It’s the department’s ability to recruit enough officers to keep the city safe.
A Department Falling Behind
How bad is it, really? Bad enough that Chief Comeaux isn’t mincing words. The Firearms Training Center — the facility where officers must qualify to carry a weapon on the streets of one of America’s largest cities — features an outdated targeting system that technically works, but sits inside a complex that looks like it’s been slowly losing a fight with time and weather. Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Chad Williams put it plainly: “Just like the Chief said, it is not what you would think for the ninth-largest police department,” he noted.
The stakes go well beyond appearances. Dallas voters previously approved a referendum requiring the department to grow to 4,000 officers — a target the city is nowhere near hitting. Comeaux argues that without modern facilities, that goal becomes functionally impossible. Recruits today have options. They’ll go where the training infrastructure signals that a department takes them seriously. “Right now, we’re recruiting at the highest level for police departments, really across the United States. That’s not gonna continue if we can’t come up to standards with other departments. We’re lacking, and it’s bad,” he warned.
Council Frustration Runs Deep
But it’s not that simple. Several city council members are visibly frustrated — and not just about the state of the facilities. They’re frustrated because they feel like they’ve been here before. Voters already approved $50 million in a prior bond package earmarked for police training improvements. That money, critics say, was never enough to begin with, and now the city is circling back to ask for five times as much.
“Here we are going back to the voters potentially, and asking them to foot the bill again,” said Councilman Adam Bazaldua, whose comments reflect a broader unease on the dais about returning to taxpayers with what amounts to a do-over request.
Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn was even sharper, and notably, she saw this coming. “Now, when the $50 million was added to the bond, I very vocally said that’s not enough money in a meeting. I got yelled at,” she recalled. “Well, let me tell you, here we are because we never put in the right amount of money to begin with.” It’s the kind of told-you-so that doesn’t feel good for anyone in the room — because she was right, and it cost the city years.
What Comes Next
Still, the city has to make a decision. The council will weigh whether to place the $250 million bond proposal before voters, a figure that reflects the full scope of what officials now say was always necessary — two facilities, modern infrastructure, and a training environment that can compete with departments in cities Dallas considers its peers. The UNT Dallas partnership, in particular, signals an attempt to anchor the academy within an academic and community framework, rather than simply patching what exists.
Whether voters will be receptive after feeling the sting of the first, underfunded attempt is another matter entirely. Trust, once spent carelessly, is its own kind of infrastructure — and it doesn’t rebuild overnight.
