Sterling police add carport to support regional training hub role

Sterling police are putting up a new carport at the department’s training range, a small build that is meant to make the site more usable for instruction, protect officers from the heat and help Sterling host a Red Dot Instructor Course that is expected to draw law enforcement personnel from across Colorado. The department is casting the work as part of a broader push to make Sterling a regional training hub for Northeast Colorado, not just a place where officers qualify and move on.

The timing fits the way Colorado law enforcement training now works. Colorado POST says agencies choose most of their own training independently, with the main exception being instructor-development courses. POST also says its red-dot-sight instructor rules were adopted because Colorado agencies and academies have increasingly used red-dot sights, and the handgun red-dot instructor program requires students to have already completed a POST-approved handgun instructor program and score 100 percent on the handgun qualification course on the first day. That makes a covered, weather-tolerant range more than a convenience; it is support infrastructure for higher-level instruction.

Sterling is not building this effort from scratch. The Logan County Shooting Sports Complex covers more than 300 acres and was developed through cooperation among Logan County, the City of Sterling, the State Land Board, the Department of Corrections at Sterling Correctional Facility and Colorado Parks & Wildlife. The complex includes rifle and pistol ranges, trapshooting and archery, with 1,000-yard and 600-yard ranges alongside shorter ranges and seated benches. The police department’s carport project builds on that regional footprint and helps turn an existing public range into a more flexible training site.

For Sterling police, the upgrade also matches how the department describes itself. The department says it has 23 sworn officers and 6 civilian employees, operates around the clock and emphasizes partnerships, community policing and public safety leadership. Its training materials say officers regularly attend workshops, certification courses and advanced training in investigations and forensics, leadership and supervision, specialized response and crisis negotiation.

The public return is straightforward: a better range for Sterling officers, better conditions for visiting instructors and a stronger local role in regional law-enforcement training. In a county that already has a major shared shooting complex, the carport signals that Sterling wants to use that asset more often, and use it better.