The Gainesville Police Department will receive a $100,000 grant approved by the 2022 Law Enforcement Training Grant Committee for the fiscal year 2023.
Gainesville Police Department Training Director, Lieutenant Justin Martin said this grant has helped the department deliver more high-quality training, which puts a more professional product out on the road.
“This funding is going to help us really ensure that we're able to maintain our standard of providing just the most professional police services possible by having some of the most well-trained officers in the state,” he said.
The Law Enforcement Training Grant program awards grants on a competitive basis to support training for law enforcement in four areas. According to Lieutenant Martin, these areas are use of force and de-escalation training, crisis intervention training, training to support mental health and school safety training.
“We're primarily using it for four different things, for one thing, we use it to purchase training and expendable supplies, for our scenario-based training programs,” Lieutenant Martin said. “And that can be things like, like cartridges for our taser training program, or targets and ammunition for our less lethal weapon systems training programs.”
The funds would also be used to upgrade technology in their training facility, school safety training and instructor development.
“We are using it for some school safety training for our school resource officers to cover some costs to get them into a national training program for school safety,” Lieutenant Martin said.
