Sound of gunfire hit too close to home

Gloucester residents move to stem shooting range's use

Hillarie Holdsworth and Jean Grobe are concerned about the shooting range (background) that Gloucester’s Police Department has used for firearms training. (David Kamerman/Globe Staff)

GLOUCESTER - The sound of gunfire started bouncing through this narrow valley in West Gloucester about 18 years ago, when the city's Police Department began firearms training for its officers at a clearing near the Haskell Reservoir.

For homeowners who lived near the range, the noise was a mild annoyance. "We put up with it," said Jean Grobe last week. "Sure it annoyed me, but then my neighbor got a rooster, and that annoyed me a bit more." Occasionally, during backyard barbecues, guests would shudder in reaction to the piercing sounds of the gunfire, said Grobe, who has lived on Lincoln Street for 20 years. Parts of her neighborhood are less than a mile from the range.

In the past three years the range, which residents say in a petition "sprouted organically, without any regulations," has gone from a mild nuisance to a major headache as its use has dramatically increased. Shots could be heard constantly, during the day and night and on weekends, they say.

Last month, after deciding they were getting nowhere in meetings with the police department, the residents hired an attorney and started gathering signatures to set up a special hearing with the City Council.

At a Dec. 2 hearing, the City Council voted unanimously to close the range for 60 days.

"We took matters into our own hands," said Grobe, as she strolled last week past puddles on Forest Street, a dirt road that leads into the range. At the range, she kicked around several spent 9 mm shells. She then pointed toward a large level rise of earth at the end of the range.

"That's part of a walking path," she said. The rise also serves as the border of the massive Haskell Reservoir.

The City Council has directed the Police Department to use the 60 days to come up with an outline that details how many hours the department needs to train officers, and whether state permits are needed to run the facility. The Police Department previously informed the council it needed to use the site about seven months of the year, including weekends and nights. Gloucester Police Chief John Beaudette did not return several calls seeking comment for this story.

Salvatore Frontiero, the attorney who spoke on behalf of residents before the City Council, urged the council to adopt an ordinance that would govern the use of the range. Residents are requesting that training be limited to three weeks in November and three weeks in March, from 10 a.m to 5 p.m, with no weekend or holiday use. Five additional days between November and March would accommodate officers unable to attend the regular sessions.

Frontiero said the range apparently started in 1992, without any formal design or construction. The Police Department had trained at the Cape Ann Sportsmen's Club, but were prohibited in 1992 from using that range. Soon afterward, the department started conducting training near the reservoir.

The range became a busy place after the Police Department invited the US Coast Guard to train there and when a sergeant on the department, a state-certified firearms instructor, began using the range to train other law-enforcement officers from throughout the state. Police also gave the Mass Mudders, a club devoted to off-road four-wheel-drive truck enthusiasts, permission to use the area. The club held a recreational shoot there this past summer.

Recently, the Coast Guard, which had trained hundreds of cadets at the range using M-16s, decided to move their training to Fort Devens, after learning of residents' complaints.

A memorandum submitted to the council by Frontiero states that "in light of the disruptive nature of this range, the Gloucester Police have not and cannot justify the open-ended, seven-month-per-year use proposed by the Department."

Grobe said she is optimistic that at the end of the 60 days, the council will adopt some form of their request to limit the hours of training at the range.

"The range was becoming a huge problem. If I was sitting down in my house, I could hear it like it was right outside. And then, they started shooting on the weekends. That's what really got everyone's attention. They pushed the envelope."