Deputies take on new firearms qualification
Published 1:25 pm Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Pacific County Sheriff’s Office deputies recently spent several weeks adapting to new standards, with most now qualified.
Detective Cory Nacnac, the agency’s head firearms instructor, made tweaks to the agency’s pistol and rifle standards, which the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission previously said are nothing out of the ordinary.
“According to Chris Williams, our Firearms Program Specialist, this is a straightforward and acceptable qualification standard,” CJTC Communications Manager Megan Saunders said in an email dated Feb. 2, 2023, in response to a question about the sheriff’s office’s previous standards change.
An extensive public records request was submitted to the sheriff’s office on March 19, requesting firearms standards, evaluation forms, pictures of targets, remedial training recommendations, timesheets, and even ammo usage.
The records request was fulfilled on April 8 and provided all requested documents except the individual deputy evaluation/score sheets. A request for the missing documents was subsequently submitted on April 16. The sheriff’s office responded on April 22 that they do not exist.
“We have gone digital on deputy range scoring and only keep the scores in the qual book,” PCSO Chief Civil Deputy Hollie Billeci said.
“This is so we do not have to print off tons of paper and [have them] flying around the range getting wet and being extremely inefficient in the elements. Because of that, those documents do not exist,” Billeci added.
According to the records requests, Nacnac expected that there could be some issues with getting deputies trained to the new standards. He submitted a waiver of policy to Sheriff Daniel Garcia dated Feb. 6 to allow deputies who struggle not to face discipline, including being taken off duty.
“This new qualification has zero-tolerance for complete misses of the target, while the old qualification allows for an astonishingly high 30% miss rate,” Nacnac stated in the letter. “Additionally, the targets for the new qualification are smaller and more accurately represent the acceptable shot placement on a human threat as opposed to the large BLEA targets.”
“The new qualification also reflects real-world time standards, with out of time shots penalized as misses,” he added. “In other words, the targets are smaller, the times are tighter, and misses are no longer acceptable. I will point out, however, that the qualification is still baseline, and is by no means [too] high a bar, as I’m sure you concluded having shot it yourself.”
The records request did provide a copy of the qualification book in the form of a spreadsheet, which shows all but two deputies and two reserve deputies had qualified between Feb. 21 at the time of the records request.
It also depicts all but five deputies and three reserve deputies have qualified for patrol rifles as of the records request.