By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

On the north side of the city, Benicia Police Department has its own firing range, divided into two sections. During Saturday’s Citizens Academy class on firearms, instructors used the two sections to divide up the class, one half learning about sidearms while the other fired rifles.

“We’re lucky to have our own range,” Cpl. Fred Ayala said. Not every police department has a firing range at its disposal; Benicia shares its range with Vallejo police, and has allowed other departments’ officers to use it as well.

The wooded setting off Lake Herman Road became a classroom Saturday as Ayala, Sgt. Roger Yokoi, Detective Aldo Serrano and School Resource Officer William Patterson taught members of the class how to handle Glock pistols and AR-15 rifles.

It was more than just an exercise, though the trip to the range was just a glimpse into the training Benicia police receive.

Serrano told the students at the end of their experience, “It’s awesome to see you can adapt. It’s good to know there are citizens like you guys.”

He described incidents in which officers who had been shot and no longer could fire their weapons were defended by citizens who, in those emergencies, were able to handle the officers’ sidearms.

“If an officer is in peril, you’ll be there for us,” he said.

Some of the academy members had never fired a gun before. Others are war veterans, former members of law enforcement or gun owners with experience in one or both types of weapon they fired Saturday.

Three of the officers demonstrated how they advance in a firefight, communicating with each other as they got closer to a static target, using obstacles along the way for cover.
Serrano also fired an automatic rifle, sending 60 shots into a target in 10 seconds.

Then it was the students’ turn.

They began by loading rounds into magazines, pressing them in against a spring inside the casing.

Then Yokoi and Ayala carefully coached half the academy members in handling Glock handguns, encouraging them to take a bent knee, face-forward stance for better stability, and showing them how to align the pistol’s sights.

The students began by aiming and pulling the triggers of empty pistols, doing what is called “dry shooting.” It’s a training exercise Benicia police themselves use, for an hour at a time, to focus on the fundamentals that may save their lives.

The instructors stressed safety, cautioning students to keep weapon muzzles pointed down or at the large paper targets, and to keep their trigger fingers stretched out along the side of the gun’s muzzle, and not on the trigger, even if the weapon is unloaded. Academy members were told to treat each weapon as if it’s loaded.

Nor should they grip the Glock tightly — instead, Ayala said, hold it as if it were a bird.

Unlike the heavy steel .44 Magnum revolver Academy student Dan Stacey brought to class to give students a comparison, the Glock is made of a space-age polymer. It’s a gas-powered gun, designed to have a much lower kick than the revolver.

“It’s exhilarating!” Berta Aceves said after she finished sending multiple bullets into the torso of her paper silhouette target. She — and many of the others — kept the target as a souvenir.

Scott Reep took his target, too. But it’s a gift for his 14-year-old daughter, Alex.

“She’s pretty excited,” he said, describing Alex’s reaction to learning her father would be firing handguns and police rifles as part of the class.

A few students worried that they had a larger cluster of tears in their target’s torso.

But that’s what trainers hope to see, Ayala explained.

At one time, trainers hoped to produce someone who could put bullet after bullet into the same hole. But thoughts on the matter have changed.

Instead, Ayala said, shooters aim for a torso area about the size of a pie plate, because it causes more damage to the target.

But students got to fire at their target’s heads as well.

While they all wore protective eye and ear wear, students donned protective vests when Serrano and Patterson explained how to fire the police rifles. They taught students to fire those larger weapons while half the class focused on pistols.

As in the segment on handguns, students learned that the stance for the long gun was full-face forward. Patterson explained that tilting the body into a modified fencer’s stance is an invitation for a shooter to aim for areas the vest doesn’t protect, such as the heart.

Unlike the sidearm part of the class, students didn’t do any “dry shooting” with the rifles.

Instead, they learned to place the end of the rifle into what Patterson called the “pocket” of the shoulder, which becomes a pivot point as well as a brace against the rifle’s kickback when it’s fired.

Arms are held closer to the body, and the gun is nestled against the cheek of the shooter.

“I am becoming a vise on this gun,” Patterson explained.

Rifles are examined and prepared at the beginning of an officer’s shift, examined and prepared mid-shift, and again at the end of the shift so it is ready for the next officer.

“The Colts are great weapons,” Serrano said. They have a range of up to 500 yards, and are equipped with both day and night sights.

When police use the range, they train during the day, at night and in inclement weather so they’re ready for multiple conditions. The range has storage places for props officers can use to simulate indoor situations.

Unlike some departments, Benicia police have had no recent trouble getting ammunition for their guns, although seven years ago, when the war in Iraq was in full swing, the department struggled, and even acquired some from Vallejo police.

Benicia police and other departments stay in touch with each other, Ayala said. If one agency has a batch of ammunition that is approaching its expiration date, it may offer it to a department that is about to undergo training, so the bullets aren’t wasted.

While the department no longer refills shells, it does gather the spent shells for recycling. In fact, one of the final activities by the Academy students and their instructors was to pick up spent shells and clean the range.

But that was just part of Saturday’s exercise, too.

“A bad day at the range is better than a good day at the office!” Patterson said.

READ MORE ABOUT THE CITIZENS POLICE ACADEMY BY CLICKING HERE.