Inmate Work Crew
Will Set Up
Steel Handgun Targets Every Saturday
at County Firearms Range
The Sheriff’s Office Inmate Community Service Program work crew, supervised by Detention Deputy Steve Hansen, at right, setting up a ‘plate rack,’
one of the reactive steel target systems available for shooter use at the Sweetwater County Shooting Sports Complex Range
August 27, 2012
The Sheriff’s Office Inmate Community Service Program work crew has begun setting up the county’s reactive steel
targets and target systems at the County Shooting Sports Complex Range every Saturday.
Sweetwater County Sheriff Rich Haskell said the handgun targets and target systems were obtained in 2011 by the
Sheriff’s Office through a Friends of the NRA grant. They are available not only to law enforcement for firearms training,
but to the general shooting public as well.
Shooters Daniel Clark, left, and Brady Veach, right, were
practicing with a reactive steel ‘plate rack’ at the county
firearms range. In this relay, Clark ‘cleaned the rack,’ hitting
all six plates with six quick shots
Reactive steel targets, just as the name implies, react when hit: they fall, they move, they swing, they produce a distinct,
unmistakable “gong” or clanging sound.
The only drawback is that they can be labor-intensive to set up; while many of the targets can be set up by one or two
shooters, others require four and that, Haskell said, is where the ICSP work crew comes in.
The ICSP work crew, he explained, arrives at the county firearms range, located on the Little Firehole Road about four
miles south of U.S. Highway 191 South, around 8:00 AM on Saturday morning and sets up the targets, which are left up
all day under the supervision of the on-duty range officer. They are then ready and available for handgun shooters all day
and at no charge until the ICSP crew returns at 4:45 to put them away.
Haskell said he hopes to have the arrangement in place, with county detention center staffing needs permitting, until midor late October, through which time a weekend range officer is on duty Saturdays and Sundays.
The Inmate Community Service Program was created by Haskell five years ago. It allows non-violent, pre-screened,
misdemeanor-level volunteer inmates of the County Detention Center, working under the direction supervision of Sheriff’s
Office detention officers, to perform cleanup and light maintenance projects for not-for-profit, governmental, and
community service organizations.