- August 11, 2026
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By all accounts, a Longboat Key police officer has never fired their weapon on the island while on duty.
But, off State Road 64 — about halfway between Bradenton and Zolfo Springs and in the middle of nowhere — nine LKPD officers and sergeants gathered to sharpen their shooting skills last week. On Wednesday and Thursday, state-mandated annual firearm training was held at the former Bradenton Police Department range.
After a brief introduction and policy review from Officer Gregg Pescuma, officers approached a row of six paper targets, unholstered their Glock 45s and shot hundreds of 9mm rounds.
“We do transitional drills, active shooter drills, we walk through different types of courses and line of fire. That way we can be prepared for any scenario that we may encounter,” said Sgt. Michael Mathis, one of three Longboat police officers who led the training. “This is just firearms qualification to make sure everybody’s where they should be and proficient in firearms.”
Aiming for center mass, officers had a 98% accuracy rate in pistol training.
Police Chief Russ Mager said that, after asking around the department, the consensus is a gun has never been discharged by an on-duty LKPD officer in the town’s 70-year history. Sleepy Longboat has a very low violent crime rate, but being prepared is paramount.
“It’s not like ‘oh it’s just Longboat, you don’t really need to train for every situation.’ We train just like we’re a big city because we want our officers to be prepared for anything,” Mager said. “I would rather over-train and be over-prepared than the opposite.”
After the pistol training, Longboat officers pulled out the big guns. Locked away in in each patrol car is a Smith and Wesson M&P 15, semi-automatic assault rifle reserved for extreme circumstances.
“You have to think that the general public, as far as the Second Amendment, has the right to have high-powered firearms and whatever else, and we don’t want to show up to a call and be outgunned,” Mathis said. “So, the agency has provided us with patrol rifles, and it’s a wonderful thing.”
One aspect of the drill was to practice the prompt retrieval of the rifles from the vehicles.
“We set up equipment and we run through certain scenarios removing the rifles from the car,” Mathis said. “You can’t just reach in and grab it. It’s just keeping yourself fresh. That movement, you want it to be muscle memory.”
Though firearm training is an annual requirement, education is a year-round effort for police officers.
“Firearms training is just one component of the thousands of hours of training that we do. We have training for every aspect of our jobs, whether it’s domestic violent situations, Baker Acts, impaired driving, defensive tactics, report writing or interview and interrogations,” Mager said. “We have a myriad of training types that our officers are constantly doing every year. Some are required by FDLE, others are just best practices.”
