Warner Robins police training center set to open by December

The 4,800-square-foot facility will include classrooms, administrative offices and defensive tactics training space.

WARNER ROBINS, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The Warner Robins police training center is close to being finished after several months of work.

The previous building was torn down to meet the needs of a modern police force. Warner Robins Police Chief Wayne Fisher says the new center will help improve the police force.

Fisher says the previous training classroom was constructed in 1985 from an already older building, and construction was starting to fail and becoming unsafe to train in.

“So, the process of evolution for the police department was to combine both the administrative and the academic structure into one facility point, which we have here, which will be around 4,800 square feet,” said Fisher.

Fisher says the new center will have centralized classrooms, administrative offices, and high-ceiling defensive tactics rooms for training in skills like baton use.

“What we’re in now will be the classroom point,” he said. “This half of the wing will be dedicated to more of an open space for that role and purpose of the training, of basically academics. And the room behind you is going to be the defensive tactics training area as well onto that.”

He says this center will have more than enough for officers to be successful.

“And we have other office space in this facility that can be utilized for other purposes along the way, beyond just administrative needs, during hiring assessments and things of that nature as well,” said Fisher.

Fisher believes this will benefit future officers as well as current ones.

“For those that are recently employed or ready to onboard, that’s a representation of what the community and organization’s willing to invest into them,” he said. “And this is a representation of our efforts in continuation to develop a workforce and staff, as well as not just for us but for the Middle Georgia area as well.”

The funding for this project came from a SPLOST approved by Houston County voters in 2018. Fisher says the center should be ready for use by December of this year.