APOPKA, Fla. – Several feet from where her children swim in her backyard, Lisa Brigham found a bullet case that she believes came from the Apopka Police Department's gun range behind her home.
"I was, like, 'What the hell,' and I picked it up. It was a bullet casing," Brigham said. "I'm going to call the damn police and tell them they are going to fix my screen."
She found the casing inside her screened in-pool enclosure about three months ago but just notified her neighbors about it on Thursday on Facebook, after reading complaints about the noise from the range.
Brigham said that in January, Apopka police officers came and took the bullet, even though they couldn't officially say if it was theirs, because several agencies use the facility.
Apopka Police Chief Mike McKinley said that, when the gun range was built in 1989, it was in the middle of nowhere. But with the population growing from about 10,000 residents in the 1980s to more than 50,000 residents currently, he said some subdivisions, such as Marbella Reserve, where Brigham lives, are close to the range.
"Unfortunately, the community has encroached in on the range," McKinley said.
Brigham said she had no idea in 2007, when she moved in, that the gun range was even there.
"It was dead quiet until like, a month after we moved in, and then we started hearing the guns," Brigham said.
More than a decade later, she said she is used to the noise of the gunshots. Now, Brigham said, she is worried after finding the bullet casing in her backyard.
"When I'm finding bullets, that's what bothers me," she said.
McKinley said he wasn't aware of the bullet casing found in Brigham's yard. He said there was a complaint a few years ago after a bullet was found in someone else's yard, but he said, with the safety barriers, berms and woods that surround the range, it's hard for him to confirm the bullets were theirs.
"We don't know where it came from," McKinley said. "I'm not going to discount that something could have happened. Odd that it did, but we do take safety measures. We are aware of the complaints in the community."
He wants to assure the community the range is not open to the public and no officer is ever there without a firearms instructor. He also said the barriers and berms are intact.
"We have sufficient berms out there, we have trees that surround the range, sufficient trees between the subdivision behind it and the berms to try to protect the community," the chief said.
As for the noise, he said he consistently sees complaints, especially on social media. He said with the addition of 10 new officers in the last two years, and stricter statewide and departmentwide qualifications, his officers are spending more time shooting at the range.
"There is a lot of use of the range and more use of the range because of the growth in the Police Department and in the city of Apopka," the chief said. "We are trying to take that into consideration and we understand their concerns. We try to do it during the day. We do it during the week when people, the majority of the people, are at work."
He also wanted to address rumors online that the range may be moving. He said, right now, that is not in the short-term plans.
"It's finding funding for it. As the agency grows, we may outgrow the range. We may have to look at an indoor range, moving the range to another part of Apopka, " he said. "But again, where do you move it? Because the growth of Apopka is tripling over the next 10 years, we all know that it's going to continue to encroach wherever we move it to."