Critics Target Police Gun Range

Fifty years ago, when the Pasadena Police Department set up its shooting range in Eaton Canyon Park, the only grumblers would have been the deer and coyotes that populated the foothill area.

Times have changed. The shooting range has not.

With houses now on surrounding hillsides--and hikers everywhere--the proximity of the officers, their guns and their bullets is making neighbors downright uptight.

If the bam! bam! bam! of the guns was not enough to set the community’s nerves on edge, the bullet that went through David Blacher’s living room glass door was.

“There’s a saying from the old country that the success of foolishness does not make wisdom,” Blacher said. “The fact that no one has been hit by a bullet from this range does not mean there isn’t a danger.

Just a few weeks ago, the Police Department announced it would begin using the range for night shooting practice one week out of the year.

And the neighbors are vowing not to let this issue pass any more quietly than their gunfire-filled days.

“This is not a gun issue, it’s a safety issue,” said Blacher, who is hoping to bring his concerns before the City Council this month. “I am a gun owner. I am pro gun. [But] I’m not pro crazy.”

For their part, the Pasadena police contend that the range is only a minor noise nuisance to most neighbors. And it does not, they say, pose a safety risk.

The police do not acknowledge that the bullet that struck Blacher’s house came from the city range, although they did pay about $400 to repair Blacher’s door. Another agency was using the range that day, police say.

“The fact that Mr. Blacher’s window is broken by a bullet--although I don’t know where it came from--leaves me with some concern, obviously,” said Police Lt. Rick Law, who oversees the range. “Based on the fact that we’ve had just this one incident since the range has been there, though, I would say the range is safe.”

The city of Pasadena Civil Defense Training Center Rifle Range was developed before World War II as a state-of-the-art training facility; its underground bunker and tunnel system for changing targets was considered a marvel of practice range technology.

For 30 years, the range was also open to the public, but that portion of the canyon shooting site was closed in the early 1980s. Today, as many as 20 law enforcement agencies use part of the city-owned range.

In the late 1980s, in response to residents’ complaints, the city studied various sites for a new range, including building an indoor facility near the Pasadena heliport, said Pasadena Mayor William Paparian. But the costs and regulations governing such a facility made relocation prohibitive.

So over the past two years, the city has used federal funds to erect a sound-muffling system to address the noise problem, Paparian says. The police, he says, continually monitor the safety rules at the range, although each outside agency is responsible for ensuring its own safe use of the range.

“There is a need for the Police Department to maintain a level of training,” Paparian said. “They don’t just put holes in paper, there is situational training there.”

Neighbors are not the only people complaining. Ron Woodford, of the Friends of Eaton Canyon, says he would also like to see the range closed.

In addition to the lead pollution to the floor of the canyon, which is an active flood plain, Woodford complains about the danger to hikers who either trip across the range or are startled by the noise of gunfire.

The homes in Kinneloa Canyon Estates, among the first to burn in the 1993 Altadena fire, offer panoramic views of Pasadena and downtown Los Angeles.

From the range, the only view is of the mountains above. And the shooting site, tucked into a hillside crease in the bottommost part of Eaton Canyon, is invisible to even cliff-side homes that sit within 1,000 yards.

However, residents such as Bernd Knoll, who works out of his home, know it’s there--sound muffling system or not.

At any given time on Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Knoll is assaulted by the sound of gunfire, which echoes off the surrounding hills and booms back even through shuttered windows and doors.

“I’m halfway between crying and laughing,” Knoll said.