No plans to move Apopka police gun range after residents find bullets in yards

APOPKA, Fla. — Apopka police want to calm concerns about the safety of its longtime gun range and its proximity to homes.

The range sits along East Cleveland Street, which isn't as rural as it once was.

Some residents became concerned after a string of mysterious instances of finding bullets on their patios.

Read: ‘We're just prisoners': Residents upset nearby private lot used for target practice

For the past 29 years, a law enforcement training center and gun range has been set strategically down a dirt road for safety.

But recently, complaints have been coming from the homes nearby.

“It hit the house in between those windows and it dropped down,” said a resident, who asked not to be identified.

A bullet ripped through the screen surrounding his pool four months ago. He said it landed in the same area his children play.

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He believes the bullet came through the trees of a police gun range, which is visible from his back yard.

“I hear this, ‘Pow, pah, pah, pah, pow pow.’ And I sit here waiting for ambulances or sirens because it's scary, you know?” said resident Deborah Patti.

Patti has lives about a mile away from the range and just learned the noise she hears several times a week is from the same range.

She now wonders if it's connected to the bullet that dropped into her patio four years ago and hit her hot tub.

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“It would have came right through my brain, because that's right where I sit in the hot tub,” she said.

“We are using the range a lot more than we have in the past,” said Apopka Police Chief Mike McKinley.

McKinley said he's not discounting any of the accounts, but said that due to the many, deliberate safety precautions taken around the property, including required berms and thick tree lining, the likelihood the ammo came from their range is slim.

Concerted efforts are also taken to reduce noise, by never shooting before 8 a.m. or at night.

“We have to do what we need to do to make sure our officers are properly equipped,” McKinley said.

He said no one is in eminent danger.

Patti fully supports the training, but thinks the range should move.

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“It just doesn't seem right that it should be in the middle of the neighborhood. Especially open range,” said Patti.

The chief said the department's rapid growth has caused increases in training.

While there have been discussions about the long-term future of the range, there are no plans to move it.

Cox Media Group