GARDINER — While residents around Discovery Bay are petitioning Jefferson County leaders to end gunfire at Fort Discovery Training Center, Security Services Northwest’s president is seeking signatures on his own “Declaration of Support.”
“We encourage Jefferson County to use applicable rules to quickly work with [Security Services Northwest] to ensure that it is able to continue to provide this important service to our county and the United States of America,” states the petition that Service Services President Joe D’Amico said had about 200 county residents’ signatures on Thursday.
Company employees, family and other supporters have been soliciting signatures, accompanied by Jefferson County voter registration forms, he said.
“We found out that we’re not all that bad,” D’Amico said.
“Some people like what we’re doing.”
Training site
The center trains law enforcement, private and military personnel at shooting ranges.
While shooting range and bomb squad training continues, D’Amico faces a “stop work” order on unlicensed structures at the training center.
Jefferson County Department of Community Development officials are reviewing the facility after Discovery Bay-area residents complained about the sound of semiautomatic gunfire coming from at least two shooting ranges.
County officials are now assessing several unlicensed buildings and structures at the compound near the bay’s western shorelines.
Bomb training
D’Amico on Thursday invited Jefferson County media to a site, where Seattle Police Department Bomb Squad members detonated explosives in a car using that city’s bomb truck.
The truck is specially equipped with high-tech remote systems that control a bomb-handling robot and explosives.
Describing a scenario depicting a suicide bomber who had been taken out in a car, Sgt. Jim Hansen, Seattle Bomb Squad leader for 10 years, said the goal of the training session “is to render the bomb safe that’s in the trunk.”
The vehicle’s trunk was loaded with what Hansen described as an undisclosed amount of high explosives.
Hansen praised the Fort Discovery Training Center for its remote rural location and facilities.
“This is an area that we can do some valuable training with energetic tools that we can’t do in Seattle or even at our gun range because of the limitations of the rural area,” said Hansen.