Sept. 11 leaves federal training center crammed to capacity

Posted 9:02AM on Sunday 1st September 2002 ( 22 years ago )

BRUNSWICK - It's enough ammunition to fight a small war 15 million rounds of bullets and shotgun shells. But for James Lanier, that much firepower has barely lasted the year. As chief of the Firearms Division at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Lanier oversees gun training for what's essentially the largest police academy in the nation. A flood of federal officers hired since Sept. 11 has stretched his resources to the limit. Lanier's 130 instructors have been working six-day weeks since January. Some of them will soon pull double shifts at the 17 firing ranges so students can train after dark. Lanier says he's has had to make a few emergency credit card buys to keep from running out of ammo. ``We're full-bore,'' Lanier says. ``We're maxing out our facilities and maxing out our instructors to provide the training, whereas before we at least had some breathing room.'' The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), established on the Georgia coast in 1975, has seen its training load double in the past year as the government rushed to hire new officers to bolster homeland security. Including its satellite campuses in New Mexico and South Carolina, FLETC has trained 52,000 federal law officers since Sept. 11, compared with 26,000 the previous year. FLETC trains agents and officers for 76 agencies, the FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency being rare exceptions. In many ways it's the school for those on the front lines of the nation's defense against terrorism. It trains Border Patrol and Customs agents who watch for attempts to smuggle weapons of mass destruction into the United States. It trains Secret Service agents who guard the president and the Capitol Police who protect Congress. It trains federal air marshals and the police who guard the nuclear power plants of the Tennessee Valley Authority. ``They're all over the place,'' said U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., whose district includes FLETC. ``The Park Service police, you'd think they're guarding Yellowstone. But they guard the Mall and the Washington Monument, places of very high profile that could be targets for attacks.'' The influx has pushed the government's omnibus training agency to its limits. To handle the overflow in its classrooms and dorms, FLETC expanded to a six-day training week in January and has housed some trainees in hotels up to 30 miles away. For many of the center's 2,500 instructors, the crush has meant only one full weekend off per month. The load has begun to take a toll on morale, said FLETC Director Connie L. Patrick. When she was sworn in as director last month, Patrick said more time off for employees was her highest priority. ``They were gung-ho after Sept. 11. They would work seven days, 24 hours a day,'' Patrick said. ``But now it has been about a year, and there's the burnout factor. No matter how much you want to do the job, physically and spiritually you can't do that.'' To help spread the load, Congress has given the center authority to hire back up to 250 retirees with no penalties against their pensions. So far FLETC has hired 92. The headquarters in Brunswick, which trained 76 percent of FLETC graduates last year, is also relying more on its satellite campuses. Training for plainclothes air marshals who guard domestic flights is being conducted in Artesia, N.M., while additional Border Patrol agents have been sent to Charleston, S.C. Still, Patrick says next year will be the center's busiest ever, with about 56,000 students expected. The new Transportation Security Administration is building new facilities to train its agents, expanding the Brunswick campus' 1,500 acres. And if Congress and the President agree to put guns in the cockpits of commercial airlines, many of the nation's 70,000 pilots would train here as well. FLETC is looking for other ways to maximize use of its limited space and staff. Soon class schedules will be staggered with morning-to-afternoon and afternoon-to-evening tracks. And some courses that don't require field training may be offered using the Internet or CD-ROM software, said Deputy Director D. Kenneth Keene. And FLETC, which falls under the Treasury Department, hopes to see its $200 million budget expand accordingly. ``Certainly they need additional training facilities in terms of firing ranges,'' said Jimmy Gurule, Treasury's under secretary for enforcement. ``I would like to see them have additional funding for housing facilities and additional trainers.'' With the reorganization of federal law enforcement agencies in Washington, there has been talk of moving FLETC from Treasury and into the Justice Department or the new Department of Homeland Security. In Congress, Kingston has spoken against putting FLETC under Justice, saying he's concerned it might lose funding in competition with the FBI. Patrick says her agency will do its job wherever FLETC ends up. ``We think it's kind of exciting,'' she said. ``It's nice to be kind of fought over. If nobody wanted us, I'd be more concerned about that.''

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