Wichita police plan training with realistic gunshot sounds near birth-care center

Wichita police plan to hold a 53-day training session in a quiet Wichita neighborhood that could include officers in plainclothes armed with visible handguns and rifles and realistic-sounding gunfire within 100 yards of a birth-care center.

No live ammunition will be used in the training exercises. But simulated gunfire that sounds real will be used to prepare officers for crisis situations, said Lt. Kevin Kochenderfer, SWAT commander for the Wichita Police Department.

He said the simulated gunfire will happen inside the former Wichita Children’s Home at 810 N. Holyoke and the sounds shouldn’t disturb neighbors, new mothers or infants at Wesley BirthCare Center.

Unless a door opens, the surrounding neighborhood shouldn’t be able to hear the screams or simulated gunfire from inside the building, Kochenderfer said.

“We’re supposed to be happy with that?” said Terry Cooper, who has lived in the sleepy neighborhood north of Wesley Medical Center since 1989. Her house is right across the street from the former children’s home.

Cooper said she feels like her neighborhood is “under siege” and is concerned about the potential noise and increased traffic the training exercises will bring to her neighborhood.

Cooper contacted The Eagle after she received a letter from the police department on Friday. The training exercises are scheduled to start Monday.

“I was hoping this was some sort of mistake,” Cooper said.

Wichita police confirmed the letters were given out. Kochenderfer said the notices were given out so close to the start date so that people wouldn’t forget.

“I did it specifically the other day so that they knew that it was coming up, because people forget about things. ... I didn’t want to do it a couple weeks ago, a couple months ago, since there was so much involved with it, we didn’t know the exact dates that we were going to be able to do it,” Kochenderfer said.

“Oh, come on,” Cooper said. “That’s ridiculous — as if we were going to forget.”

Cooper said she would have appreciated more of a heads-up so she could contact local media and her elected representatives to voice her concerns and make sure it didn’t happen in her neighborhood.

“These trainings need to happen in secluded, controlled environments and warehouses,” Cooper said. “In a little neighborhood like this, we don’t need people with handguns and rifles walking around.”

Kochenderfer said with more than 700 commissioned law enforcement officers attending training, scheduling was difficult for the training. The trainings happen twice a year, he said.

Wichita police formerly did the trainings at abandoned residences on the outskirts of town, at the Boys Ranch near Lake Afton or at schools that had recently been shut down.

“That’s where they should be,” Cooper said. “Out in the country somewhere or in an industrial type building — not around hospitals and houses.”

“Whether I can hear it or not, this is not appropriate,” Cooper said.

Kochenderfer said the former children’s home is a good place for the training because of its central location and increased threats around the globe of active shooters at schools, religious institutions and other residential settings.

The letter Cooper received is addressed to “Local Residents” from “Wichita Police Department SWAT Team.” It tells neighbors about the training, which starts Monday, and warns that “during this training Police Officers and role players may be in plain clothes and could have handguns and rifles visible.”

“No live ammunition will be used. However, in order to create a realistic training environment blank guns and simunition will be utilized that create a report very similar to that of live ammunition being fired,” the letter says.

Cooper feels a neighborhood is not the right place.

“This is just not appropriate,” Cooper said. “It’s a neighborhood for heaven’s sake. Would you want this across the street from you?”

The training exercises are scheduled to run from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. starting Monday and ending May 16.

“All that traffic in this little neighborhood,” Cooper said. “How are buses supposed to get through? What’s the plan for this?”

Besides the hospital, birth-care center and a family practice, the training exercises are planned within walking distance of three schools, Cooper said.

“We absolutely don’t want this,” Cooper said.

Cooper said she is not against the trainings but where they will be taking place.

“No one wants to hear gunshots ringing out in their neighborhood, especially in a residential neighborhood that’s a within a block of a birth-care center and a family practice,” Cooper said.

“I love the police. I’m not against the trainings. I love the trainings. It’s not that; it’s the location. Do it somewhere else.”

This story was originally published March 23, 2019 at 6:51 PM.