Connecticut State Policing Gun Range Closed over Lead Levels

With their firing range shut down due to health concerns, the state police are moving forward.

There are plans for a new range in Simsbury, but it might not open for another two years.

State police suffered a setback when the range was closed on April 4 due to high levels of lead at the outdoor range. With the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration currently investigating, it is unclear when the range might reopen.

At the same time, the department is moving ahead with the new, $12 million range at the same site as the current, aging operation on Nod Road in Simsbury.

Officials have completed the detailed, $2 million design for the project, and they are moving toward the next steps of soliciting bids and picking a contractor. The project could break ground this fall, depending on the weather, but the more likely scenario is groundbreaking could be in the spring of 2026, officials said. Construction would take another nine to 12 months after that.

Connecticut Public Safety Commissioner Ronnell Higgins told The Courant in an interview that officials are taking steps to make sure that the range is safe.

“We had to close the range recently,” Higgins said. “We had to do a safety stand down. We’re working with OSHA right now to try to reduce the lead levels and to try to make sure that any one and everyone who is using the range is safe.

“We’re going to do whatever it takes — working with OSHA, working with our other partners in the state of Connecticut — to ensure that our troopers are training in a safe environment.,” he said.

Lead levels have caused problems at indoor police training facilities as officers are exposed to lead due to poor indoor ventilation, but the Simsbury range is outdoors.

“It goes up into the air, but it also exposes the individuals,” Higgins said. “The indoor ranges have good circulation. I have been to several. The reality is there is a lot of volume at that range [in Simsbury] and has been a lot of volume over the years. We are constantly training. You can’t underestimate the impact of that.”

Those who were affected at the Simsbury range were the full-time instructors who spend many hours and days at the range, rather than troopers who train briefly on a particular day and then head to another assignment.

When asked if the instructors became ill or had elevated levels of lead in their blood, Higgins declined to comment about personal health issues.

Union reaction

Retired Sgt. Andrew Matthews, who serves as the executive director of the troopers’ union, said Higgins and Col. Daniel Loughman moved quickly in closing the range and placing the health of the troopers as a high priority, which he termed a change from the past when health and safety concerns were often dismissed by the top brass.

“The colonel and the commissioner took it seriously,” Matthews told The Courant. “That’s not typical of our agency. … These guys are real leaders, and we’ve long awaited leadership like this that addresses problems that have been ignored for decades, including health and safety issues.”

While declining to reveal any names, Matthews said two of the six full-time instructors at the range were affected, including one who had a blood test during an annual physical examination.

“Two of the members came up with higher than normal elevated blood levels of lead,” Matthews said. “One of the issues is we have a berm there where the lead is collected when people shoot. You have high levels of lead in the berm. They have different methods of reducing the exposure to lead. One is to spray it down. One would be to extract all the lead.”

Matthews added, “They’re testing the water. For decades, we’ve been using that facility. Obviously, they don’t drink it. They’re talking about bringing in a trailer with a shower in it, and also bringing in clean water so they can shower before they go home and change their clothing.”

Traditionally, troopers do not wear masks at the outdoor range. Nearly 900 troopers head to the range twice each year to be recertified, but their exposure is low when compared to instructors who are there every day. In addition, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents sometimes come to the range to improve their skills.

“It’s the six instructors who are really the ones who are exposed to the constant lead, and it’s floating in the air,” Matthews said. “We think it’s possible it’s saturated even in the building they work in. In the 19 years I’ve been involved in the union, this has never come up. This is the first time we’ve ever heard of the lead.”

Concerning the instructors, Matthew said, “They are protecting their ears and their eyes, but there’s been no protocol in the years that I’ve been around where our academy staff was wearing a mask to protect them from inhaling particles.”

State Rep. Greg Howard, the ranking House Republican on the legislature’s public safety committee, has fired guns in training thousands of times during more than 20 years as a police officer in Stonington.

“You can get lead poisoning in a lot of ways,” Howard said in an interview. “If you’re handling a lot of ammunition throughout the day and not really washing it off your hands. If you’re an instructor, they’re standing over their shoulder, they’re monitoring it. Every single squeeze of the trigger creates an explosion. When that explosion takes place, there’s gunshot residue that goes in the air, which I’m sure has some lead content to it.”

There are clear differences, he said, between indoor and outdoor ranges.

As a member at a private club with an indoor shooting range, Howard said, “I don’t bring my sons down there. They’re teenagers. We shoot outside. There’s a lot of lead in the air, and the ventilation system is good. But I’m not going to expose my boys to that.”

Trooper acquitted in shooting

The availability of the firing range is critically important, police say, as troopers need training because they might be called upon to fire their guns in a department that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In a high-profile trial, state trooper Brian North was found not guilty by a jury in 2020 in the shooting death of Mubarak Soulemane, a 19-year-old driver who was shot in a stolen car after it was boxed in by police.

North, who had been charged with manslaughter and other charges, took the stand in his own defense in the highly publicized trial in Milford that was unprecedented because it represented the first time that prosecutors had charged a Connecticut trooper in a shooting death.

Soulemane was involved in a high-speed chase along Interstate 95, but his car finally stopped in West Haven under a highway overpass. The prosecution and defense both agreed that Soulemane suffered from mental illness. The incident was captured on police body cameras as he was shot while sitting inside the car as it was surrounded by police cars.

In the coming days, the state police said they will take a number of steps.

These include: “Conduct voluntary occupational health screenings for all personnel currently assigned to the firearms training unit,” police said. “Engage OSHA for an onsite consultation and assessment regarding operational suitability. Initiate employee training on lead and noise hazard mitigation. Review and implement risk-mitigation strategies that can reduce occupational exposure to airborne lead, noise, and other potential hazards associated with firearms training environments.”

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