$16M for Durham Sheriff’s Office training facility is going to a vote. Here’s when.
After weeks of protests, Durham County leaders will vote next week on whether to spend $16.6 million on a law enforcement training facility that the sheriff says is years overdue.
The Durham County Sheriff’s Office renovations call for a new outdoor gun range and 10,000-square-foot classroom building with bathrooms, lockers and showers. Sheriff Clarence Birkhead said the current training grounds and firing range are bare-bones and have a single portable toilet.
Protesters organized against the training center in the fall, labeling it “Cop City” to link it to an ongoing protest movement in Atlanta around a much larger police training facility under construction.
They’ve urged leaders in Durham to instead spend the money addressing the root causes of crime.
“We don’t need a $16 million compound to have bathrooms or soundproofing,” resident Chelsea Earles said Monday at a county commissioners’ work session. “This is something different. This is militarization.”
The final vote is scheduled for a commissioners’ meeting that will begin at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 13, at 200 E. Main St.
The total cost of a new facility is over $18 million, with the rest having already been spent on plans and preliminary site work.
Could HEART expand countywide?
Activist Brandon Love urged county commissioners to reject the sheriff’s plan and instead expand the HEART program countywide and into the schools.
HEART is a city-run program that dispatches unarmed social work specialists to certain 911 calls.
“Spending $18 million on a training facility sends the wrong message about what our priorities are,” Love said.
Expanding it countywide could require consolidating the city’s and county’s 911 systems, and County Manager Claudia Hager said there are “a lot of questions we need to vet.” Hager said she would begin laying the groundwork for a broader discussion in the coming months.
Birkhead said he “would not be opposed to” having HEART workers respond alongside deputies to some calls.
“It goes back to the question of scalabilitiy,” Birkhead said, expressing concerns about personnel costs and training.
Parent Damon Williams said the money could also be spent to help solve Durham Public Schools’ transportation crisis. His child’s bus route is one that could be cut amid a driver shortage.
“Even a portion of $16 million could be reinvested in public school transportation, to better pay our underpaid, overworked, yet still highly dedicated bus drivers to ensure that my child and thousands of others can keep riding the bus,” he said.
‘I don’t see law enforcement going away’
The Sheriff’s Office has been using the land, over 90 acres on Electra Road, since the mid-1980s for mandatory annual firearm qualifications, court-ordered auctions and bomb-squad detonations.
Commissioners Chair Nida Allam said she understood both sides’ arguments.
“I know the training facility already exists and obviously I support our staff having the facilities with bathrooms, lockers,” Allam said. “Also, I think the concerns of our community are really important.”
Commissioner Mike Lee said the “Cop City” comparison was an unfair one, since the Durham facility will be far smaller in scale — a 10,000 square feet building compared to over 85,000 square feet in Atlanta.
“I don’t see law enforcement going away.” Lee said. “If we’re going to have law enforcement, I want them to be trained well.”
This story was originally published January 6, 2025 at 5:25 PM.
