Radio Listen Live
Radio Listen Live
DX
Download Download Now
22 Oct 2026
Let’s Talk Midterms with Chief Daniel Comeaux

There's no question that our first responders deserve the best training, equipment, and facilities possible. But what's the best way to make that happen?

In this episode of Let's Talk Local, we go behind the scenes at the Dallas Police Department's training facility, where the need for major improvements is hard to ignore. But is Proposition A the answer?

Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux gives us a firsthand look at the aging complex, explains what his officers need, and shares his hopes for the future as Dallas voters prepare to make their voices heard in the midterm election.

0:00
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Host
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Guest

Episode Timeline

All Episodes
01:47
The reasons why Chief Comeaux chose the Dallas Police Department
05:08
A look inside the DPD classroom building
06:28
Challenges that come with successful recruiting
08:30
A look at the gun range
10:40
Talk about plans for a new facility
12:08
The role that a training facility plays in recruiting
14:27
Pistol and shotgun range
19:19
Has anything broken ground with the previous bond money?
19:49
Expectations if Prop A passes and if it fails
21:10
Examples of training areas that officers have built themselves
23:22
SWAT breach house
24:52
Is there a plan forward without the passage of Proposition A?
27:32
Officers spending their own money to build training facilities
29:20
A look at the SWAT Breach House
33:52
How bigger recruiting classes are impacting training
Subscribe and Listen on
Join host Sarah Zubiate Bennett on Let’s Talk Local as she uncovers the stories, people, and places shaping Dallas, fostering a stronger and more connected community—let's get to know the real Dallas!

Full Transcript

00:13
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Thank you for your time today.
00:15
Chief Daniel Comeaux
I I felt like you would enjoy this.
00:17
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
I love it. I love... I know. I... It may not look like I love it, but I love this this sort of stuff.
00:23
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
But seeing it up close and personal and seeing where our first responders are training and learning what they must in order to protect us, I'm I'm here for it. So I will follow you or whomever and
00:36
Chief Daniel Comeaux
So red shirts, are y'all gonna hang with us? Where where
00:38
Officer Victor Guardiola
We'll follow on
00:39
Chief Daniel Comeaux
you. Whatever. And and look, this is one of the things that I want. You know this better than I. Don't be shy.
00:46
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Speak up.
00:47
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
How? How do you know it better?
00:50
Officer Victor Guardiola
Well, I mean, I would say we're here every day. We're responsible for the day to day operations here. Gotcha. We get to experience it, start to finish.
00:58
Chief Daniel Comeaux
So How How many years have you been on now?
01:00
Officer Victor Guardiola
I've been on the department for fourteen years. Been out here for about three.
01:03
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Amazing. And
01:04
Chief Daniel Comeaux
that's why he knows it better. Got you. They they live it every single day.
01:09
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yep.
01:09
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And so with them living it every single day, I really want them to also give a perspective. Don't be shy. Voice your opinion. But my thing is more or less talking about the needs of the department. And so you can see with your own eyes, your viewers can see where we actually train as the Dallas Police Department.
01:25
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And right now, we're the seventh largest police department in The United States and the ninth largest city in The United States. And to be quite honest, when they talk about police departments throughout The United States, we're a top three police department.
01:37
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
That's
01:38
Chief Daniel Comeaux
right. When I walk in a room at at the major city chief conference, they wanna know what Dallas is doing.
01:42
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yep. So As they should.
01:44
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And and a lot of that comes from... Dallas is very unique when it comes to law enforcement. So when I left the federal government, I knew I wanted to be a major city chief. And I only circled several cities that I was willing to go to. The reason I say willing to go to, coming from such a proactive background of having to find the criminals and go after the criminals on long term cases, I needed to go to an area where I could be myself first of all.
02:09
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And being myself was saying, you're doing something wrong, we're putting you in jail. Mhmm. Right? So if you start looking at The United States and you start looking at a map for major cities, circle the cities where you can actually say that as a chief of police. Yep.
02:22
Chief Daniel Comeaux
There's very, very few. And Dallas is the number one city, in my opinion, in The United States where you could say, you cross the line, we're putting you in jail. Very few major cities can say that, and and I would challenge you to pick the next closest one. It's pretty darn hard. So that's why I wanted Dallas and everything freaking lined up, and I could be myself and just say, hey.
02:45
Chief Daniel Comeaux
We're going after bad people.
02:46
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yes.
02:46
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Now I do believe in education and awareness. And if we can stop you from going to jail
02:51
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Of course.
02:51
Chief Daniel Comeaux
We wanna be a part of
02:52
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
that also.
02:53
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Yes. But if you cross that line, we're putting you in jail, and we're not gonna make any mistakes about it. We're not gonna apologize for it. Yep. So, that's why Dallas, in my opinion, is the top three police department in
03:04
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
The United States. Yeah. Amen to that. And can can you, if you wouldn't mind, would you kinda have everyone introduce themselves, to the camera? I know we met earlier, but Victor and any...
03:16
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Anyone here who will possibly be speaking just so that we're all all aware.
03:21
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Yeah. Mara, you you do it too because Mara thinks he's a pretty boy. No. I'm not. No.
03:25
Chief Daniel Comeaux
He thinks he is. I'm not. He thinks he's like the Latino I'm not even a pretty boy legend. He's mister Telemundo.
03:36
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Okay. Okay. Vamos, I mean, come come over here so that we can all introduce ourselves and such. So, Victor, everyone, tell tell tell us who you are.
03:50
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
I'm, sergeant Brian Candelaria. I've been with Dallas, nineteen years. I'm the sergeant over at the range.
03:56
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Incredible. Thank you so much.
03:58
Officer Victor Guardiola
My name is Victor Guardiola. I've been on the department for fourteen years. I've been out here at the range for about three.
04:03
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Thank you.
04:04
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Chief Comeaux? Chief Comeaux? Yes. Happy to be here in Dallas.
04:07
Major Anthony Greer
Major Anthony Greer of Chief of Staff. I'll be twenty nine years next year.
04:11
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Wow. Wow. Twenty nine years.
04:14
Senior Corporal Luis Mara
Oh, it's your corporal Amada. Been under the department seven years. I'm another Volunteer Professional Officer. Health professional officer. Preferably Spanish.
04:21
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Right?
04:21
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Thank you. And I'm Sarah Zubiate Bennett. Let's let's actually tour this place, see what we're talking about. We've heard from different parts of... Or both sides of the coin, I should say, pertaining to this particular bond, the public safety bond.
04:37
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
This is critical. This is important, and we can hear from the people who live this, breathe this day in, day out.
04:43
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Let's go. Lead it lead it, Candy. Alright. I don't know. I feel bad calling you Candy because I call you brother Candy.
04:48
Chief Daniel Comeaux
He has a twin brother on the job.
04:51
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
I'm the better one. People attest to that.
04:53
Chief Daniel Comeaux
He says he's the better one, but the other one says he's better looking. So I
04:56
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
don't know. And you're identical? You're not fraternal?
04:58
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Identical twins.
04:59
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
I love it. My husband's an identical twin. I have fraternal twins. Boy, girl. Wow.
05:03
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yeah. We love twins. Wow.
05:06
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Real quick. This is our main building. We can tour this inside too as well. Sure. This is where we have our...
05:12
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Host our classrooms. Pre qualifications. Come inside real I got the door.
05:19
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Thank you.
05:21
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Hello. This is where we host most of our classes, if not all our classes. Recruits come in here. We teach instruction in front. We've got the TVs, small office space, bathrooms back here.
05:38
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
We only have one stall for the women's bathroom. Mhmm. And quite a few women that work here. Yep. That's an issue.
05:44
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Yep. We also have the men's bathroom, again, some office space back here.
05:49
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Got you.
05:49
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And so you can already see that originally erected. That's over 3,500 officers. This space is nowhere near.
05:56
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
3,500 officers. And when was this building erected?
06:00
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
In the... I would say in the fifties.
06:02
Chief Daniel Comeaux
It was in the...
06:02
Officer Victor Guardiola
Late fifties is when
06:03
Chief Daniel Comeaux
the building
06:03
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
the building was put.
06:04
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Okay.
06:05
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Yeah. So it's... Just needs a little TLC.
06:09
Officer Victor Guardiola
Yeah. Classroom can hold
06:12
Officer Victor Guardiola
How 48
06:14
Chief Daniel Comeaux
many students?
06:14
Officer Victor Guardiola
48. In our average class right now it's I think 55 to 60 give or take so we have chairs stacked over there on the side that we end up having a stack back there and then along the sides to be able to accommodate everybody.
06:28
Chief Daniel Comeaux
So right now recruiting is going extremely well we're starting classes with 55 to 60 students we've even had a class over 70 that started. So now you're saying, we're gonna train everyone. You can't even put them all in the in the gun range to get trained that one day.
06:42
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Wow.
06:43
Chief Daniel Comeaux
So that that brings more challenges because now you have to divide the class up, a side, b side, and you have to do multiple days of training, then it puts a challenge on the academy to also get everyone on the same schedule.
06:55
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
What is that bottleneck, do you think, in terms of being able to effectively train people that that want to serve, but yet are derailed months possibly because of the time constraints to break everything up?
07:08
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Well, look, there's several bottlenecks overall, and that's some of the things that we've really been looking at in the process. And I think we did a great job of meeting the past proposition on hiring. You know, first it was three, and then three fifty, next year it's 400. Yep. I'm very confident we're gonna meet that.
07:21
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Good. We've already met it. We went 20 over this year, and this year we're gonna meet it again. But there are definitely bottlenecks through the process, and it's, through the recruiting process and also through the HR process of making sure, even like, for instance, the psychiatrist. Right?
07:37
Chief Daniel Comeaux
There's a bottleneck there. So there's different things that we're working on to to make sure the process is smoother. But then once we get them in, then it becomes a challenge of coordinating all the classes to make sure they get the necessary TCO classes, the necessary classes that DPD wants to put them through on all the different scenarios. So now you're looking at this academy, GunRings place, which is arguably one of the most important places when it comes to law enforcement.
08:01
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Of course. Right?
08:02
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Yeah. Because, we have to keep all the officers safe, but we also wanna keep everyone else safe.
08:08
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yep.
08:08
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And training is so important. And when you look at a range of something that's so important, the facility needs to be better.
08:14
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Of course. Of course. Thank you. Thank you for this.
08:17
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Let's show them now, Southport. Now I'll show you where, when I first came here, going on nineteen months ago, I thought they were pranking me when I had to qualify out here. I literally thought it was a prank of a gun range. So this is the first part that I came to when Wood I was coming to
08:34
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
rot. Is that wood rot?
08:36
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Yep. That's a...
08:37
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And that's what I thought when I was like, okay, they're playing a prank on me. I looked up here and I saw this this glass and I saw this and I said, okay, they're about to prank me. Then I saw that window unit and I was like, all right, this is a prank. Get ready for something to jump out. They're gonna try to scare me or something because I know I'm not going to qualify.
08:53
Chief Daniel Comeaux
So I was kind of walking in like looking around and they're looking at me and I know the feel was, why is this man being timid? And I literally was waiting for somebody to jump out and say boo or something. Like, I was like, you gotta understand the law enforcement mentality. Right?
09:08
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
I know. I, I, I get
09:09
Chief Daniel Comeaux
it. I'm like, okay. They gonna do something to me. And, so we came through here.
09:15
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
So what is that? Hold on. Is that a beehive?
09:19
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
It is a beehive in town.
09:20
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Oh, okay. Okay. Sorry about that.
09:22
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Might be a way we can make a little extra money. Alright, Candy. You can take it over again.
09:30
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Yeah. So this is our cleaning room. This is where, like Chief said, about 3,500 of our officers come to clean their weapons after a qualification or practice. It's tiny. It's...
09:41
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Again, it's been here for a very long time. Definitely need an upgrade. It's just not feasible. I mean, there's wood falling.
09:51
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Oh, we
09:52
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
And as you can see, the foundation on the floor, the cement is coming up.
09:59
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Oh my gosh. It's so dilapidated. It
10:03
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
It is.
10:06
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Okay. This... Okay. I understand.
10:10
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Yeah. Fine. I like the heater though. It does get kinda cold in Dallas sometimes. Doesn't work.
10:17
Chief Daniel Comeaux
There there... Oh, it doesn't work? Oh. Well, it's there for show. And the AC is open up the...
10:23
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Open up these doors in 110 degree weather.
10:26
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Got you. Got you. Okay.
10:29
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Just make sure you watch this step too
10:30
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
because we're down. It's very... These mats
10:32
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
are to cover cover the cracks
10:34
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
and the
10:34
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
foundation issues that we've got.
10:38
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Okay. Question. So is it true or untrue? Whenever you all are going to have this new facility in, like, please God, will there be an indoor gun range and an exterior gun gun range?
10:54
Chief Daniel Comeaux
We're looking at right now at more of an outdoor gun range.
10:58
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Oh, okay. In the new facility?
10:59
Chief Daniel Comeaux
In the new facility.
11:00
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Got you. Yes. Okay. Okay.
11:03
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And and look. I'm okay with an outdoor gun range. It'd be nice to have both. Yep. If I if I can be greedy.
11:08
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yep. Want both. Yeah.
11:10
Chief Daniel Comeaux
But if I had to choose one or the other, I would prefer an outdoor range range because it simulates more of what the officer's gonna actually have to deal with. All weather conditions. Gotcha. Right? And and outdoor.
11:22
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Okay. Even in Dallas, even though I don't like it, it snows sometimes.
11:25
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Sure. Yeah.
11:26
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Yeah. Yeah. Hey. That sounds we need to be out here shooting in snow. You need to be shooting when when when it's cold.
11:30
Chief Daniel Comeaux
So I'm okay with outdoor, but it has to be updated from this.
11:34
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yes. Yes. I mean, look
11:35
Chief Daniel Comeaux
at the shingles.
11:36
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Shannon, get the shingles. This is, like, I mean... Yeah. I understand. It seems like a joke.
11:42
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Or not a joke.
11:43
Chief Daniel Comeaux
But Well, thought they were pranking me at first. I was like, I just... Not Dallas. Because Dallas has a reputation of of being Dallas. Right?
11:51
Chief Daniel Comeaux
We're Dallas. And so this is not what I was expecting.
11:55
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Have you ever had a a possible recruit come here, and then turn down Dallas because of the training facilities?
12:07
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
I don't know if a recruit that's ever done that. Uh-huh. Yeah.
12:10
Chief Daniel Comeaux
So what I would say to
12:11
Chief Daniel Comeaux
that is
12:11
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
all are tough. Right? You all are... I mean So
12:13
Chief Daniel Comeaux
here's the thing. The Dallas has a reputation of of being one of the best. So a lot of people would... They identify Dallas for some of reasons I talked about earlier. But what it does is you have a pool of maybe 10 departments, especially for those recruits who are not saying, hey.
12:28
Chief Daniel Comeaux
I wanna police where I grew up. Mhmm. Right? So you have a pool of 10 departments. And now if they just look at a department right down the street and you have brand new facilities, it could play a role in that recruit making a choice.
12:42
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And those are the recruits that we're really looking at when you have facilities that make a difference. Right? And here's the thing, and I'm gonna keep saying this over and over. What I don't wanna do as the Dallas Police Department is take everyone who passes our tests. I wanna have a pool of people where we're looking into that pool and we're pulling out the best of the best.
13:02
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And I think that's where facilities start to play a role in it. Right now, we have enough people coming in. Mhmm. But I don't care about just enough people coming in. I wanna get the best of the best throughout The United States Sure.
13:12
Chief Daniel Comeaux
To come in. Sure. That's where the facilities are gonna make a difference. And when you're putting them out on the street and when you call 911, you want the best of the best to come. You don't want someone who just passed the test.
13:22
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
That's right.
13:23
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And they were eligible. Yeah. Right? We wanna be able to pick who we want.
13:27
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yep.
13:27
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And the job that I would take right now, so if anyone's listening to this podcast... I know no one listens to your podcast. But if there's anyone listening who wants to make me the general manager of a professional organization, I'm ready to go. The closest I'm ever gonna get to that... Right?
13:43
Chief Daniel Comeaux
The closest I'm ever gonna get to that is being the chief of police of Dallas Police Department. So I'm trying to put together the best team possible, and we need facilities to do that. Yep. I'm gonna keep saying that over and over in case somebody does listen.
13:56
Officer Victor Guardiola
So this used to be an old Southwestern Bell telephone pole storage building.
14:02
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Okay.
14:02
Officer Victor Guardiola
So that's why you'll see, like, the big poles in the middle. Uh-huh. That's that's really the only reason the building's still standing because they built it
14:08
Chief Daniel Comeaux
right back
14:08
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
there. Well, I I was wondering. I thought if there's literal wood, what's preventing it from collapsing? But the telephone poles. Yep.
14:18
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Those are
14:19
Officer Victor Guardiola
And we think that's that's the only thing. All this is really just sheets of plywood. Yeah. They're on the outside, kinda just double layered.
14:26
Chief Daniel Comeaux
We'll take it. And this is where the range master and Candy, y'all... You can take over again. This is where the range range master runs.
14:33
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
This is our tower, and this is where we announce when we have the officers on the line ready to shoot. This is where we do our announcements and get on the loudspeaker. But as you can see, it's falling apart too. We've requested a new one, but it takes money and construction and
14:49
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yep.
14:49
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Construction crew to come out here to demolish this, put a new one in. Okay. But, yeah, I mean, several of our instructors go up there. They announce that we've got a computer up there as well. Okay.
14:59
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Turn the targets and announce everything.
15:00
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yep. Okay.
15:02
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And then over here is where the actual targets go. Uh-huh. And then over here is, the fine lunch area for the officers to eat.
15:13
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
That's where that's where lunch happens. In the summer, in the winter.
15:17
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
That used to be our shotgun base. I mean, this is still our shotgun base, but it used to work. It used to function very well. We still host, our shotgun qualifications, but as you can see, it's it's also...
15:28
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And we can walk over there. You can see the building. And then in the back, if you wanna... No. No.
15:31
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
I don't want
15:32
Chief Daniel Comeaux
you to mess up your shoes. I'm I'm fine. Yes. And then in the back, there's also Some training that goes on behind it with some targets.
15:45
Officer Victor Guardiola
So in our facility here we train on multiple different weapon systems, So we got officers primary weapon. It was a pistol. They're trained on rifles and shotguns, right? So this this these two ranges here help us cover pistols and shotguns, right? But like we talked about, we're we're allotted for 50 spots here.
16:04
Officer Victor Guardiola
Most of these classes that we're getting are 60 person classes so we don't even have enough space to train everybody here. We have eight shotgun bays here so when we're training the recruits on shotguns which is over here we're having to divide those up so again it takes time it takes manpower and it's just it's it's taken away from training time the the recruits could be having to get a better quality recruit, just because we don't have the space for it.
16:25
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Gotcha.
16:26
Chief Daniel Comeaux
The building over here is... As you see. Well, you can see the installations that's left.
16:33
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yeah.
16:42
Officer Victor Guardiola
And this is a storage building for for tools. Cause again, for a very long time we were doing a lot of our own maintenance here just because of, like you said earlier, we're kind of out out of sight of mind. A lot of the maintenance we did ourselves. But with the temple picking up a training, training takes priority on on on everything. Kind of where we're at now.
17:00
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Is this mold? Like, is there mold in here that you all are breathing in on the backside?
17:07
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Well, let's hope not. I don't know. I don't know. But anything's possible.
17:12
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Okay.
17:17
Chief Daniel Comeaux
You can show them where they shoot the shotguns through.
17:20
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Has city council been here?
17:24
Chief Daniel Comeaux
I don't know many of them since I've been here. Uh-huh. I I don't know many of them that have been out here since I've been here.
17:30
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Okay.
17:31
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
You can see the ceiling, insulation as well is coming out. And if you look down these, shotgun bays here. There's targets. These steel targets is what officers and recruits shoot at. Right now, these don't work.
17:47
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
They used to work back in the day, but there's white heads that come up a little bit. And you would shoot that target. That would be your indicator. But now because that doesn't work, we just shoot the back, steel target back there.
17:58
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yeah. Okay. Are these all ballistic steel or is that one...
18:02
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
It's all it's all ballistic steel.
18:04
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
It all is. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
18:08
Officer Victor Guardiola
So a couple concerns that we have here in the shotgun bays are obviously, you know, hearing. Right? Because these are supposed to help suppress some of the noise. Uh-huh. But it's also the circulation.
18:16
Officer Victor Guardiola
Right? Because when we shoot rounds, there's
18:18
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Of course.
18:19
Officer Victor Guardiola
Powder getting burned and everything.
18:20
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Oh, yeah.
18:20
Officer Victor Guardiola
So there's some fans that are here. Again, the problem is fans don't work, right? So again, now we're getting poor circulation. You got a lot of people under here, so it becomes into health concern.
18:30
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Oh, Yeah. Absolutely. Wow. You all, this is definitely not what I expected. Yeah.
18:40
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
And when people had commented on the, you know, on the
18:45
Officer Victor Guardiola
Brown recluse.
18:46
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Let's say the health of the buildings, I thought it was a little exaggerated. It's not exaggerated.
18:55
Chief Daniel Comeaux
No. It's not at all. And and it's one of these things where you say, hey. Let's repair this. Let's spend money to repair this.
19:02
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Uh-huh. I mean, is it is it good money spent to repair this at this point? No. You know, you you can't repair this. No.
19:09
Chief Daniel Comeaux
You just need to knock it down and and redo the whole thing. But then even with the space, even if you try to redo the space here, it's still not gonna be accommodating.
19:17
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
And, chief, has anyone... Has any ground broken anywhere with any of the funds that were raised in the prior bond package?
19:25
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Has any academy. Yes. Yes. For the academy, the ground is broken.
19:29
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Okay.
19:30
Chief Daniel Comeaux
The lots are being cleared, work is being started.
19:32
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yep.
19:32
Chief Daniel Comeaux
They're telling me they're ahead of schedule right now. Yep. So... But let's let's wait until we get six months out to really see if we're ahead of schedule.
19:38
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Okay. And walk me through, if you can, just briefly or anyone else here who may know. So if this bond passes, the public safety portion proposition a, how quickly would you believe that you'd be able to actually have a gun range training facilities broken ground on at this point?
20:05
Chief Daniel Comeaux
For what I'm being told by 2029. Correct. When I'm being told for the gun range and the EVOC. Okay. 2029 for that, the academy will be ready in 2028.
20:15
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Okay. And tell me, hypothetically, if it wasn't passed, if for whatever reason, proposition a at Dallas City was not passed, what are the estimates there? Because then it would have to go back to city council in May.
20:29
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Reality? Oh, reality. This is what you're looking at. This is gonna be it.
20:33
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
You really believe that?
20:34
Chief Daniel Comeaux
I believe that. I believe this is gonna be it, and this is where, since the fifties, and we might go into 2050. This is gonna be it, I believe. And that's why we really... We need new facilities.
20:47
Chief Daniel Comeaux
We need the facilities to match the police department Mhmm. To make sure we get the proper recruits to continue to come here.
20:53
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Okay. Thank you for that. Yeah. Thank you.
20:57
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
We've got our rifle range down here. We can take a walk
21:01
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
down there. Please. Please. I'll follow you.
21:03
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
And we... Last, I would say back in March of this year, we had to purchase some Hesco barriers, which are barriers to help stop rounds. Because as you can see, we've we've expanded here in the city. We've built buildings or cities built buildings and warehouses. And so, we had to do this ourselves.
21:25
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
We had to shut the range down for a week, buy some sand.
21:28
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Oh, yeah.
21:29
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Put them in the barriers.
21:30
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yep.
21:30
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Put them up ourselves.
21:32
Chief Daniel Comeaux
But part of what he what he's talking about also, you can see as we walk closer, you'll be able to see... The building behind
21:37
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Uh-huh. Now is shooting 50 cals or anything, are you?
21:41
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Our SWAT team has a 50 cal, but we also have a huge
21:45
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
So they're two twenty threes, they're rifles.
21:47
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
We have our two twenty three rounds,
21:48
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
100 Okay. Twenty three zero eight, So yeah, I wanna see these sand barriers because it's, I mean, is madness. Have you accidentally ever had anyone shoot into a building?
22:02
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
No. Knock on wood. We've never
22:05
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Thank God. Yeah.
22:06
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Yeah. For sure.
22:08
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
That's... You all don't think this is sort of a hazard?
22:14
Chief Daniel Comeaux
We do. Be better. Yeah.
22:16
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
We do. But, luckily, we have great instructors here.
22:18
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
22:20
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
And we're constantly monitoring monitoring all our officers and recruits and while they're out here shooting. So anytime we see anything hazardous or or safety violation, we shut it down real quick.
22:31
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Oh my gosh.
22:34
Chief Daniel Comeaux
So these these are
22:35
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
how the how the Hesco barriers come in right here in these pallets. Uh-huh. And when you expand them, they come into those big square kind of cylinders back there or blocks back there. I'm sorry. And then we had to have the city...
22:47
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
We had to purchase some sand, got a forklift and a skid steer.
22:52
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Okay. So so bear with me here. Nothing's ever ricocheted, so none... Nothing is... So you have no ballistic steel down there?
23:00
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
No ballistic steel. No.
23:01
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Okay. So...
23:02
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
But we do have rocks inside the inside the berm there in the hill. So Okay. We're always afraid of, you know, ricochets from there.
23:10
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Of course.
23:10
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
But with that building being in the background, we wanna make sure we mitigate any type of ricochets like that. So we went ahead and put those hescals out.
23:19
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Wow.
23:22
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
So some of these here, this is our... One of our SWAT breach houses. It's another breach house. Each one of these, we built on our own. Yes.
23:28
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
The department did. Wow. Or our officers did. Uh-huh. SWAT goes down there, trains.
23:35
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
A lot of those doors are donated or some of them are purchased on their own money and that's where they practice on building explosives breaching so they make sure they always get things right when they when they set off an explosive device. There's a SWAT rappel tower That's where they do a lot of their rappelling and training.
23:53
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And, Sarah, even for your viewers also, if there, if there's some property owners that have purchased land or purchased buildings, we're always looking for areas to train, like before they knock them down or
24:05
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
get In Dallas.
24:06
Chief Daniel Comeaux
In Dallas. Okay. We would definitely utilize them for training because then we can stage and set up training like we're doing search warrants or we're doing rescues, and, we'll go there and train before they knock it
24:17
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
down. Okay.
24:17
Chief Daniel Comeaux
So that that would be great if you have any viewers that has any facilities that they wouldn't mind us training in.
24:23
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Of course. Yeah. I mean, at least at our place in Athens, we've done that before because we have some house... When we purchase up different acreage around us, they sometimes come with some dilapidated homes and people will train there. Always welcome to take people out there.
24:38
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Absolutely would utilize them.
24:40
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
But yeah, that's so for Dallas. Okay, that's good. Good to know. A good call out. Yep.
24:45
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
And. An additional question that just came to me. So when... And I I know... And you may just say, Sarah, scrap this.
24:54
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
I don't wanna answer it. I know that Kara's main argument was saying, you know, it's the fiscal stewardship or the inability of the city to be responsible with funds. So while she's, you know, 100% pro police, pro you all having the best facilities, she believes... Or she stated that she believes that everything will still be able to be built. And and just to make sure that I understood your answer over there correctly, you do not believe that that is possible?
25:28
Chief Daniel Comeaux
From everything that I know from being here eighteen months, I don't see a path forward for it to be built at this time without,
25:34
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
what they're
25:35
Chief Daniel Comeaux
trying to do now with this proposition.
25:36
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Proposition a. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
25:43
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Alright. Yep.
25:45
Officer Victor Guardiola
So further back behind this classroom, we actually have a a ballistic, a ballistic house where we can actually do live fire training inside.
25:52
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Good. Good.
25:52
Officer Victor Guardiola
Which is one of the few in the state. That that's a really good thing we have on this facility is that.
25:56
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
How big is it?
25:57
Officer Victor Guardiola
It's six rooms. Square footage, couldn't tell you how much it is, but it's six rooms that we're able to bring our officers and recruits through and do live fire training in.
26:06
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Okay. Yeah. That... That's important, but that's also expensive.
26:09
Officer Victor Guardiola
This was built by our SWAT operators, I wanna say late nineties, early two thousands. Yeah.
26:14
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Okay. Late eighties. Would
26:16
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
you be able to salvage any of that or no?
26:18
Officer Victor Guardiola
I mean, it's all robotized and, fill dirt. I it would just have to be... I mean, read... Just something to consider when we go
26:24
Chief Daniel Comeaux
to the new facility.
26:25
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yeah. Okay.
26:26
Chief Daniel Comeaux
That's just not where it should be on the level that it should be.
26:29
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Uh-huh.
26:29
Chief Daniel Comeaux
It's it's nowhere near the level it should be. This is basically officers officers putting their mind together... Officers putting their engineering minds together to build something to train in.
26:38
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Sure. Yeah.
26:39
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And I I think just, you know, from... And and going into that, just to say, you know, for the eighteen months that I've been here, what I'm trying to do is get officers to do police work. Yeah. I'm trying to get officers, and I'm I'm showing that from, you know, starting without PIO officer, bringing a professional PIO in, bringing a professional in over HR rather than having officers play at those positions. Mhmm.
27:02
Chief Daniel Comeaux
I really don't like officers playing as engineers. Yep. That's not what officers should be doing. They should be protecting you. They should be answering 911 calls.
27:09
Chief Daniel Comeaux
They should be helping get response times down. Yep. Not playing engineer on building a a shoot house. That's that's not what they should be doing. Yep.
27:16
Chief Daniel Comeaux
We need the professionals to do that and officers to do what they're paid and hired to do, which is keep everyone safe in Dallas. Yep. We could still go around and you can get more pictures or if you wanna get a closer up of of the... What's interesting about this, you can see, and this kinda kinda aggravated me a little bit. When I was talking to some of the SWAT officers, they actually go out and find doors and purchase doors with their own money
27:39
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
What?
27:39
Chief Daniel Comeaux
To to go in and and work these scenarios. So... And this is where they do it at down here where they breach doors.
27:47
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Hold on. Why would you guys buy things with your own money? Or why?
27:52
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Because we need to train. I mean, at at the end of the day, we need to train. We gotta get things right. We have to, especially with explosive... Well, anything police related.
27:59
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Yes. Explosive breaching, we have to get it right.
28:02
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And a lot of it's so outdated. The way that it's built, the only way you can do it is with a new door. Right? There's new technology out there
28:09
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yes.
28:09
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Where you can utilize and use some of the same things over and over. But it's not the the scenario. Let's walk down here so you can see.
28:16
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yeah. I'd love hear.
28:16
Chief Daniel Comeaux
This is, you know, this is just picking up doors at at old facilities or somebody that some contractors throwing away.
28:25
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yeah. Yeah.
28:26
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And and we'll grab them and.
28:31
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Wow. This is this is crazy.
28:36
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Well, there's new technology out there where you can utilize the same door multiple times.
28:40
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Mhmm.
28:41
Chief Daniel Comeaux
But you know, we're still in the 50s here, so. My gosh. Alright, maybe the 60s now. And we do do, we do, like if you have a group of people that you want to bring out and they can see it actually being done, we'll do that also. Dion coordinates that a lot of times with the SWAT team.
29:04
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Dion's with SWAT for a long time. And we'll bring folks out so they can actually see the training and they can understand what the officers actually go through and like, Dion, what what put this hole through this door probably?
29:20
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
A little bit, but, yeah. So you just put either a water bag of some sort, IV bag with some explosive, material behind it, and you you set it off and you see... You look at it and see what kind of results you get if there was any shrapnel that came through the back. Whether we got to either increase the charge, decrease it.
29:38
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yeah.
29:39
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
And so this is again safety stuff and liability. So they constantly train out here They try different charges, like this one had a strip charge of some sort that went from up to down. Again, came out the back, so no frag.
29:54
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yeah.
29:54
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
You know? So a lot of testing and evaluation just to make sure.
29:59
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And I think that's so important when he just said, you know, you have to know what you're doing in the front. Of course. Doesn't affect someone that could be innocent behind the door.
30:07
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
That's right.
30:08
Chief Daniel Comeaux
So you have to... We have to get it right.
30:10
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yep. Yep. And and also someone else could be using this on you. Right? I mean, like, hypothetically on the officers.
30:21
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Don't you think? Someone's sophisticated.
30:24
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Well, here's here's the biggest thing, when it comes to breaching. Is when something's barricaded, right? If it's barricaded and they barricaded halfway good, the amount of time that it takes for you to get in compromises the whole operation. Every officer's in danger And quite honestly, everyone inside's in danger, the longer that it takes also. Mhmm.
30:48
Chief Daniel Comeaux
So they're they're trying to keep you out and and like say for instance a dope house. They're trying to keep you out so they can run to the toilet and place the dope down.
30:55
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
That's right.
30:56
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Right?
30:56
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Mhmm.
30:57
Chief Daniel Comeaux
But the the level of danger goes up every second that it takes us to get inside. Mhmm. Because it gives everyone inside a second to if they want a home someone to grab a weapon. Right?
31:10
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yep.
31:10
Chief Daniel Comeaux
So every second matters. So you have to get it right and you have to get that door off the hinges immediately.
31:16
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Got you. Got you. Okay. Yes.
31:20
Chief Daniel Comeaux
And I can tell you it's one of the scariest things when you when you're running a warrant. Uh-huh. One of the scariest things is when you hit that door and that door doesn't open the first time. Yeah. I've literally seen where the door's hit over 20 times and because of the proper barricading on the backside.
31:38
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Wow. And everyone's completely in danger at that point, everyone inside and everyone outside. So this is very, very important, area and really keeping everyone safe throughout the city. Right? Mhmm.
31:50
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Because you have to be able to make entry immediately.
31:53
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
How many times a year do you see situations like this on average as as a department?
32:01
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Well, somebody's running a warrant every day.
32:02
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yes. Yes.
32:03
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Yes. Somebody's running a warrant every day, when it comes from the narcotics, the fugitive unit.
32:07
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yep.
32:07
Chief Daniel Comeaux
The SWAT team, you put everything out there and us working with our counterparts, somebody's running a warrant every single day. And when it comes to barricaded doors, one of you SWAT guys want to give it a shot. From my DEA days, it's very common. And I would say it's a weekly occurrence that some type of barricade is going to be on the door. Now, it might not be as good as they thought it was.
32:34
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Sure. Yeah.
32:35
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Especially when you're coming with a mobile RAM, You know, some of the things don't stop. And you go back to the old school days, I've seen very simple $10 barricades keep us out for 10 hits on a door. Wow. You put the the right two by four behind the doors
32:52
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
in the right area. Don't tell them how to
32:53
Chief Daniel Comeaux
do it. Well, we're we're we're training so good right now, it won't stop us now.
32:58
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Good. Good. Good.
32:58
Chief Daniel Comeaux
We're talking old school days.
33:00
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Got you. Got you. Got you.
33:01
Chief Daniel Comeaux
But no one listens to your podcast that
33:03
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
would be
33:04
Chief Daniel Comeaux
doing this. Right?
33:04
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
You're you're right.
33:05
Chief Daniel Comeaux
There's very few people that listen.
33:06
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
You're only in the
33:07
Chief Daniel Comeaux
top 1%. I mean, who's listening?
33:12
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
But it's... This is this is good. Good visual accompaniment. Good conversation around it. Is there anything that anyone else would like to add pertaining to this that you feel like we didn't cover, didn't hit upon that would kind of move the needle on the education front?
33:30
Chief Daniel Comeaux
Let me put Chuck on the spot and ask you a question, Chuck. Is there something maybe you can articulate it better?
33:35
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Here, I'll take this. Hold on. Go ahead.
33:39
Chief Daniel Comeaux
On, the size of the class when it comes to being able to make sure we train everyone accordingly because the size of the classes are getting bigger. Is it how's that a challenge for us as a department?
33:52
Officer Chuck
So what they usually try to do out here is five to one, right? And we have a lot of officers who are recruits who've never fired a weapon before. So if you're going to teach someone who's never fired a weapon before to safely use a weapon, shoot it, not just shoot it, but unload it, load it, all that stuff, how to handle it when there's people around, you need a lower instructor to student ratio. That way they can physically see what everybody's doing, right? When everybody's shooting on the line, they step back and they're like watching all five, right?
34:25
Officer Chuck
But if you may miss something, you may miss the way, a slide goes back and the rookie doesn't recognize it and they do, malfunction incorrectly.
34:34
Sgt. Bryan Candelaria
Yep.
34:35
Officer Chuck
Or they drop their magazine when they're not supposed to, which would be a safety violation. When you have larger classes and the instructor to student ratio continues to increase, they may miss those little details, meaning the rookie may have a bad habit that we don't spot until later on.
34:51
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Got you.
34:52
Officer Chuck
So that's why we need the classes to be a certain size with the, instructors to be a certain ratio so we can spot all these and make sure everybody gets trained up safely and correctly. Thank
35:05
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
you for that. Yeah. That's
35:08
Chief Daniel Comeaux
going off now.
35:09
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
I know it. I know it. It's good. It's good. Thank you all so much for keeping us safe.
35:14
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Thank you for all your service, the work that you do, for your points that you made today because it's it's critical. It's critical to the city of Dallas, to all that we're doing, all the talent we're attracting here. People wanna feel safe. We are huge supporters of law enforcement, which you know, and we will continue to help spread this this word and this news. Thank you.
35:37
Chief Daniel Comeaux
I appreciate you coming. Thank you.
35:39
Sarah Zubiate Bennett
Yes. Thank you. Absolutely.
featuring our host.
SARAH ZUBIATE BENNETT
Venture Philanthropist, Host and Executive Producer of Let’s Talk Local, bold leader driving growth in private and social sectors.
Talk Local with Us
Subscribe on your favorite podcast platforms and join us as we uncover the stories and voices that make Dallas extraordinary—Get to Know the Real Dallas.
The Dallas Express delivers Dallas and national news with independent, fact-based reporting. Founded in 2021, we provide direct, unbiased coverage. Truth lives here.
Menu
Recent Feeds
Quest Diagnostics Reports Patient-Record Intrusion As Labs Face Scrutiny Over Data Security
October 23, 2026
Texas Friday Night Football Could Soon Air Live On Television
October 23, 2026
© 2026 Dallas Express. All rights reserved.