MCSO looks to expand West Tennessee Regional Training Center

DENMARK, TN (WNBJ) - In Madison County, the sheriff’s department is looking to grow its training center to help the community and law enforcement statewide.

The West Tennessee Regional Training Center in Denmark offers a variety of different training resources to law enforcement and community members.

“We view this as a regional training center, we serve our own, of course, but we feel a great responsibility to law enforcement all across west Tennessee to help them with their training as well,” said Rick Brooks, the Director of Training at the Madison County Sheriff’s Office.

Some of those classes include active shooter training, basic school resource officer classes, grants writing classes, supervision and leadership classes, and many others.

“In the state of Tennessee every certificated law enforcement officer has to have a minimum of 40 hours of training annually to maintain certification. We have about 125 certified officers serving in various capacities around here. So, that’s a lot of manpower of training just to take care of our own," said Brooks.

The training center also hosts eight to ten training courses on a monthly basis provided through the Department of Justice, TBI, FBI, and others.

The Madison County sheriff has been working to get more funding from the state to grow the facility even more.

“Our goal is to eventually get the law enforcement academy, the state academy to come in and do an academy here in west Tennessee because everyone has to send their officers to Donaldson. We have been working for the last two or three years trying to get that to happen. Senator Jackson, Representative Todd, and even before that Representative Eldridge were trying to get the academy to come in to expand it. It’s taking baby steps,” said Sheriff John Mehr, Madison County Sheriff’s Office.

The sheriff's office encourages anyone in the community to contact them to schedule a training session for your organization or if you would like additional information about classes already offered, visit the West Tennessee Regional Training Center website.