New Police Security Command base in Lorong 8 Toa Payoh includes indoor firing range
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Personal security officers training at a 10-lane, 25m-long shooting range at the new Police Security Command base.
ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
Follow topic:
SINGAPORE - Police officers trained to keep Cabinet ministers and visiting foreign dignitaries safe have a new base that includes a training facility featuring realistic scenarios.
Located in Lorong 8 Toa Payoh, the Police Security Command (SecCom) base houses an air-conditioned 10-lane shooting range with moving targets and walls lined with anti-ricochet material.
The 25m-long range has double the number of lanes at the old base in Lorong 4 Toa Payoh, where only static targets were used.
The new range is large enough to accommodate diverse firing scenarios, such as shooting from behind vehicles or barricades.
Police said that with the indoor range, personal security officers (PSOs) can stay comfortable while training longer.
Targets can be programmed to move or drop when hit by a round. As the walls are lined with anti-ricochet material, police said there is no danger of rounds bouncing off and hitting the officers.
SecCom showed the versatility of the range on Aug 27 with a “live” demonstration. As an officer playing the role of a dignitary was shot at, two PSOs moved in to protect him.
While one officer shielded the dignitary with a bulletproof briefcase, the lead PSO fired a volley of shots from his pistol at the perpetrator before the group escaped from the kill zone. Officers from SecCom’s Special Protection Unit, armed with assault rifles, then arrived in a sport utility vehicle to provide covering fire.
The base also features an Ops Tactics Training Facility. Roughly the size of two basketball courts, the facility has movable partitions to allow for customisation of room layouts.
There is also an upper-deck viewing area for other officers to observe the training sessions.
Demonstrating the training regime that PSOs have to undertake, two officers raced up a flight of stairs and performed exercises to raise their heart rate. This is to simulate a real-life situation where they would be engaging an attacker while under stress.
The officers then stormed into dark, smoky rooms to neutralise a gunman and evacuate a casualty.
Wearing protective gear for their eyes and heads, the officers fired pistols that discharged non-lethal projectiles while being shot at by the gunman.
Trainers using a tablet to manipulate the electronic target system, lights and sounds to mimic environments that the officers may experience in real-life situations such as a bomb attack.
ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
The high-stress and noisy scenario escalated when one of the PSOs was “shot” in the leg. The “injured” PSO had to apply a tourniquet on his bleeding leg before he could carry on with the mission.
Once the gunman was “killed”, the PSOs retrieved and stabilised a casualty who had been shot in the leg and was vomiting.
The officers, who were observed by assessors throughout the mission, had to demonstrate their medical knowledge in saving the casualty.
A view of the Ops Tactics Training Facility, as seen from the upper-deck viewing platform.
ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
Apart from being marksmen, PSOs are also trained in unarmed combat, protective driving and tactical medicine.
SecCom said close-quarters battle training forces the officers to practise critical decision-making and response tactics in a controlled yet realistic setting.
Police Superintendent Candice Goh, head of planning and organisation development at SecCom, said the purpose-built base will boost its officers’ training capabilities and improve training capacity.
Supt Goh said: “This will better equip our personal security officers with the required skills to respond swiftly and effectively to any incidents when performing close protection duties.”
Officers combing a mock-up of a hotel room for potential threats during a training session.
ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
The training facility also allows SecCom to create hotel-room scenarios, where officers are taught to scrutinise everything as they look for hidden recording devices or potential threats in the room.
Officers may use a Q-stick – a device jointly developed by SecCom and the Home Team Science and Technology Agency – to check hidden or hard-to-see spots in a room.
The device consists of a live-stream high-definition 360-degree camera with a light source attached to an extendable pole.
An officer using a Q-stick, a live-stream high-definition 360-degree camera with a light source attached to an extendable pole, to search for potential threats in an inaccessible area in a “hotel room”.
ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
The new SecCom base was completed in 2023. It is located near amenities and coffee shops as well as a wet market.
The old base in Lorong 4 Toa Payoh, which was established in 2004, sits on land that is larger than two football fields. The site has been zoned for housing, subject to detailed planning.
