Kentucky broke ground Monday morning on a new 42,000-square-foot firing range at the Department of Criminal Justice Training (DOCJT) in Richmond. The KLC Board of Directors supported a provision in House Bill 1, the biennial budget legislators passed in 2022, that provided funding for construction of the new facility. DOCJT Commissioner Nicolai Jilek noted that the site is the first new building on the DOCJT campus in more than 20 years.

House Bill 1 appropriated $28.5 million for the new range and another $2.5 million to study constructing another law enforcement training facility in Madisonville. The new Richmond site replaces the current firing range, which Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary Kerry Harvey noted was well beyond its life span and “fraught with problems.”

The new facility should be complete by 2025. It includes a 50-yard, 30-lane firing range and will allow for nighttime training. Governor Andy Beshear revealed at Monday’s groundbreaking that the range will be named the Jody Cash Multipurpose Training Facility, after Calloway County Sheriff’s Deputy Jody Cash, who was killed in the line of duty in 2022.

The new center will support training for city law enforcement agencies except for Bowling Green, Lexington, and Louisville Metro, which have independent academies.