by Troy McManus, NROI RMI

USPSA's National Range Officer's Institute recently initiated a Range Officer Discipline policy. Here's a short explanation of what this policy was and was not intended to be used for.

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The RO discipline procedure is intended to be used to address serious transgressions of the rulebook and/or acceptable RO behavior while staffing a match. Examples of this would include:

cheating

verbal or physical abuse of competitors or other match staff, on or off the range

not honoring one's commitment to work

illegal behavior that might result in charges being filed

In other words, anything that would compromise our strict safety standards or give USPSA's NROI a "black eye".

What the Discipline Policy is not intended to address:

minor disputes between competitors and range officers (That's what the RM or arbitration committee is for.)

frivolous complaints based on personality conflicts

baseless accusations that can't be investigated, or are not timely

honest mistakes made by range officers during a match (We are all humans, and make mistakes from time to time. That's the nature of the game.)

what you do on your own time, as long as you are not representing USPSA or NROI in an official capacity. If you are part of a multi-day match, and on staff for the entire thing, you are considered to be a representative of USPSA for the duration.

USPSA's NROI is not going to go looking for range officers making the occasional bad call or mistake. The need for a written policy and procedure for investigating serious complaints against NROI Range Officers became apparent after a range officer was caught cheating for a competitor from his home country. While this is not acceptable behavior at any time or location, the USPSA NROI had no means of formally investigating and addressing allegations against NROI certified range officials here in the U.S. The NROI Discipline Policy provides that means.

Click Here to Download & Read the RO Discipline Policy