County Chair O'Hare Bars Federal Agents From the County Gun Range, Calling Their Mission 'Immoral' — While His Party Demands They Get More Training
A 3-2 vote ends the agreements that let 1,700 federal officers qualify at a county-run range near the border; the agency says it will have to send them out of the area to train, which the county counts as a feature
Ink = the flip (fiction). Red = real Republican · Blue = real Democrat.
FORT WORTH — The county board, led by Chair O'Hare, voted 3-2 this week to stop letting federal agents train at the county's firing ranges, on the grounds that the agents' work under the current administration is, in the chair's word, 'immoral,' and that helping them shoot straighter was a form of participation.
The agreements had allowed roughly 1,700 federal officers to complete mandatory firearms qualification at a county facility near the border and a leased military range. The agency's director said the officers will now have to be sent farther away for the same training, reducing local staffing and slowing trade and traffic at the crossings — an outcome the residents who packed the meeting described as the point.
The vote comes as the chair's party in Washington has spent the summer questioning whether these exact agents receive enough training, following a series of shootings involving them. The county's response to its own party's concern was to remove a place where the training happens, a position the dissenting board member summarized as making people drive farther to accomplish nothing.
Supporters of Chair O'Hare called it a county refusing to be an accessory to a federal policy it abhors. Opponents called it a board that wants the agents better trained and less trained in the same motion. The Press's range desk notes that 'local control' and 'obstruction of federal law enforcement' are the same padlock, described by whichever party is not holding the key.
"We will not be complicit," said one supervisor. Asked whether the agents would be less accurate as a result, the supervisor said that was the agency's problem now.
At press time a chain had been run across the range gate, a paper target had been left on the berm with a large eagle silhouette where the rings used to be, and the sheriff, who runs the ranges and opposed the vote, was reported to be reading the motion again.
📜 The Receipts
What actually happened: San Diego County supervisors voted 3-2 on Aug. 18 to end agreements letting ICE and Customs and Border Protection train at a county-owned firing range near the Mexican border and a county-leased Navy facility; Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer called supporting the Trump administration's enforcement tactics 'immoral.' CBP chief Rodney Scott said the agency used the range to train 1,700 officers and would now send them elsewhere, reducing local staffing and affecting border trade and travel; dissenting supervisor Jim Desmond said the move accomplishes nothing. The sheriff, who runs the ranges, was at odds with the board; the vote came as congressional Democrats question ICE agents' training after deadly agent-involved shootings.