Update : Follow-up on the news : Officials Concerned Over Shooting Range

After an incident this week in which a bullet blasted through the rear glass door of a home near the police shooting range, city officials on Friday expressed concern that the range poses a public safety threat.

“We feel that the range should remain closed” pending further investigation, Mayor David Sullivan said. “It’s in the best interest of everybody, including the police officers’ association.”

Though no one was injured in the incident at the home on Ford Drive, Councilman Tom Harman said, “I’m gravely concerned about the public safety on this issue. Somebody’s going to get killed out there.”

Shooting operations at the range were suspended the day after the incident but have since resumed.

At a press conference, Sullivan and Harman said the city will ask the Orange County Sheriff’s Department to conduct independent ballistics tests on the .45 caliber weapons fired at the range the day of the incident. Sullivan said the city will also seek an independent safety evaluation.

Richard Wright, president of Huntington Beach Police Officers’ Assn., which operates the range, contends that tests already done show that the bullet does not appear to have come from any of the weapons fired at the range that day.

Wright said the police union would agree to an independent testing of the weapons, however, and would have no objections to having a safety evaluation of the facility.

Because the city leases the facility to the police union, Sullivan said, it has no authority to close the range, which is off Gothard Street south of Talbert Avenue.

Wright said Friday that the range will remain open. “I think we’ve done everything we can to assure that the welfare of the community is being looked out for,” he said.