ATLANTA — Atlanta police are pushing for a new public safety training center.
On Tuesday, the chief of police took Channel 2′s Audrey Washington inside the old training academy, showing the conditions that he said highlight the need for a new facility.
APD last used the facility in 2021.
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Chief of Police Darin Schierbaum said the building was in such poor condition that recruits had to move to a now-temporary building.
The Herbert T. Jenkins Atlanta Police Academy used to be an old elementary school.
The building really shows its age on the inside. Schierbaum said that is where recruits would come to learn all kinds of tactics, including active shooter training.
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Schierbaum said the building’s deteriorating condition is why he supports a controversial plan to build a new Atlanta Fire and Police public safety center on 85 acres in the South River Forest.
People opposed to the new training facility camped out in the woods for more than a year, often clashing with police.
The tense situation came to a head when the Georgia Bureau of Investigation says a protester, Manuel Teran, opened fire at Georgia State Patrol troopers during a raid earlier this year. A trooper was seriously injured and Teran was killed.
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Protesters cited environmental concerns and the proposed facility’s $90 million price tag.
Washington asked Schierbaum if the training facility is the best way to spend that money.
“You see here, the lack of investment in public safety, that’s why I brought you here,” Schierbaum said. “For years, we have not spent the money needed to properly train our first responders to respond to active shooters. Right now we have a crane hanging over Midtown Atlanta. Do you want a fire department that does know how to mitigate that type of 30-story risk to that community?”
Schierbaum said new recruits deserve better than a building filled with rats, rust and mold.
“When you look up and down our hallways, this is where we were training our three-year veterans,” Schierbaum said. “We had to go through the hallways to make sure all the dead cockroaches had been removed.”
On Monday, Channel 2 Action News got a tour of the Atlanta Fire Department’s training facility. It is also an eld elementary school that they’ve used for 75 years.
The city condemned the building because something was giving fire recruits respiratory issues.
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