From Beaufort County Community College 

Local law enforcement officers will compete in a “Top Shot” competition to see which department has the best aim. The competition will be on March 5 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is part of the larger Public Safety Weekend being put on by Beaufort County Community College (BCCC) on its main campus.

BCCC’s first annual Public Safety Weekend will be on March 4-6. Fire, EMS and law enforcement personnel can take advantage of the classes to fulfill their annual training requirements locally.

The competition is open to all law enforcement agencies. The N.C. Highway Patrol, Washington Police Department and Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office are set to compete. Officers from across the region are attending the event, so it is anticipated that other departments will join the competition. They can participate in a qualification round, combat round, rifle round and long shot round.

PotashCorp and Code 3 Insurance are providing a free lunch. The agency with the highest total score takes the “Top Shot” trophy and earns bragging rights for the year.

That agency will hand over its trophy to the winners of the next “Top Shot,” unless they are able to hold onto their title.

“We will be holding handgun and combat trainings throughout the day, so while officers are earning their training credits, they can be competing against one another,” said Todd Alligood, director of Law Enforcement Programs.

Each year, emergency personnel are required to attend 36 hours of training, of which 35 percent can be at a training facility. Firefighters, the majority of whom are volunteers, often travel to remote parts of the state to fulfill their requirements. The Public Safety Weekend will mean that emergency personnel, including the 450 volunteer firefighters in the region, can fulfill a majority of their requirements at BCCC.

Classes include emergency vehicle driving, pediatric advanced life support, ventilation, lowers and raises and many more. Late registrations will be taken at the start of the classes, but some classes may not be available at that time. The weekend will feature several safety and emergency equipment vendors.

The event will be the first time that regional firefighters will experience BCCC’s new “burn house,” a state-of-the-art facility built by American Fire Training Structures in December 2015 with $250,000 from Beaufort County. The facility includes a configurable maze, a rappelling station, sprinkler systems, a confined space and a burn room. Until now, the facility has only been used by the students enrolled in BCCC’s fire academy.

The Connect NC Bond would help fund part of an expansion of the training facility at Beaufort County Community College. New facilities would include a 500-foot-by- 600-foot driving pad for emergency vehicle training, as well as classrooms and storage space for props including emergency vehicles.

For more information about the “Top Shot” competition, contact Todd Alligood at 252-940-6405 or todd.alligood@beaufortccc.edu. For more information about BCCC’s Public Safety Weekend, visit https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8G0nUhdN0jPNnpMTXBzTF81X1k/view, or contact Johnny Williams at 252-940-6363 or johnny.williams@beaufortccc.edu.