By Melinda Rolls
Despite facing backlash from activists and Democratic lawmakers, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is moving forward with a plan to form an armed civilian deputy force for times of emergency.
Blakeman, a Republican of Atlantic Beach, has said he plans to grow the force to 75 people. Since September, the county executive has had 25 deputies authorized to serve after completing training sessions at the Nassau Police Department training facility in Garden City, according to Newsday.
Blakeman first issued a call on March 17 for residents with gun permits to apply to become “special deputy sheriffs,” as outlined in a county flier and an advertisement published in Newsday.
The flier states that Blakeman is assembling a team of sheriffs to protect lives and property during an emergency, and that the sheriffs would have no policing authority unless the county executive were to declare an emergency. Applicants must be skilled in firearm use to be considered, with a preference given to retired law enforcement officers and military veterans.
“I didn’t want to find myself in a circumstance where we’d have an emergency, and it would be a very significant event like Superstorm Sandy, and scramble to get volunteers who wouldn’t be vetted and wouldn’t be pre-trained,” Blakeman said during a news conference on April 4.
In gathering the collection of special deputy sheriffs, Blakeman has cited New York State County Law 655. The law states that a sheriff may deputize as many additional special deputies as needed “for the protection of human life and property during an emergency” to assist existing law enforcement.
Community backlash
With over 2,600 police officers, Nassau County has the 12th largest police force in the country, leaving critics questioning Blakeman’s move.
“He says he’s going to use it in an emergency, and he points to Superstorm Sandy,” said Jody Kass Finkel, founder of Nassau Residents for Good Government, a nonpartisan good government group. “The last thing we needed was gun-toting residents floating about…We needed water. We needed blankets. We needed gasoline.”
Some opponents have accused Blakeman of forming an armed, and unnecessary, civilian “militia.” In April, Sabine Margolis, of Great Neck, started an online petition called “Stop Bruce Blakeman’s Personal Nassau County Militia,” which has collected more than 2,900 signatures.
The petition notes concerns about the potential dangers of the deputy force, including the risk of friendly fire and fatalities caused by squads with less training than police officers.
Blakeman’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
FOIL requests ignored
Democratic legislators and community advocates say much of the training process has been left in the dark, despite requests for information under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).
“Usually legislators can get information, but we had to go through the FOIL situation just as if we didn’t have a job with the county,” said Delia DeRiggi-Whitton, the Democratic minority leader of the Nassau County Legislature. DeRiggi-Whitton said she did not receive information from the request.
On April 15 and Aug. 27, the NRGG also submitted FOIL requests to Blakeman’s office. The requests included inquiries about the program, such as the circumstances under which Blakeman could call an emergency, the amount of training recruits are receiving and how the program is being funded.
The group was also not provided any new information and was sent the advertisement posted in Newsday in response. Finkel said the NRGG is now trying to file FOIL requests with different Nassau County agencies for information.
“There’s all kinds of issues that we have been trying to get answers on, and we cannot get any answers,” Finkel said. “It’s secretive.”
“Usually legislators can get information, but we had to go through the FOIL situation just as if we didn’t have a job with the county.”
Delia DeRiggi-Whitton, Democratic Minority Leader of the Nassau County Legislature
Budget concerns
Some opponents have expressed concerns about how Blakeman plans to fund the deputy force. The deputies are to be paid $150 a day for work, according to the Newsday advertisement. However, according to New York State County Law 655, an emergency deputy cannot be compensated more than $3 per hour.
“That type of salary adjustment has to come before the legislature, and it never has,” said DeRiggi-Whitton, who added that she is now looking into a lawsuit against Blakeman over the deputy force.
On Nov. 12, the NRGG called for the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority to reject Blakeman’s 2025 budget, accusing the county executive of exposing Nassau to legal costs because of potential accidents from “inadequately trained” participants in the deputy program.
For the first time in six years, NIFA rejected the county’s four-year budget proposal in a resolution dated Nov. 26. However, the resolution did not specifically reference concerns over funding the deputy force. The authority stated that the operating budget improperly included $30 million of surplus per year in the budget as revenue.
Similar state programs
Blakeman has often pointed to a similar program in Westchester County, where an initiative was introduced in 1979 to allow volunteer deputy sheriffs to be issued firearms. The program operates under Section 2.10 of the New York State Criminal Procedure Law, a provision that the State Legislature enacted to apply specifically to the county and New York City in 1983.
According to the Westchester County website, members of the Public Safety Emergency Force are appointed as part-time deputy sheriffs, have full police powers on duty and are provided with county-issued firearms. Westchester County officials say, though, that the force mostly aids with traffic control and special events such as parades.
In Suffolk County, a volunteer auxiliary police force exists, but there is no requirement to carry a firearm on duty. If volunteers wish to carry firearms, they “must complete a probationary period and undergo extensive training” in addition to the program’s 125-plus hours of basic training, according to the Suffolk County Police Department.
Blakeman’s position
Blakeman has argued that his critics are exaggerating his program and that their comments are politically motivated.
At the April 4 news conference, Blakeman requested that DeRiggi-Whitton resign from her position after comments about the deputy force in a Patch interview that he interpreted as anti-Semitic. In the article, DeRiggi-Whitton said she had heard from a Jewish resident who said Blakeman’s initiative reminded them of Brownshirts, a wing of the Nazi Party formed in the 1920s.
“As many of you know, I am of the Jewish faith,” Blakeman said at the conference. “This is not only a personal insult to me as a Jew, but it is a personal insult to humanity.”
DeRiggi-Whitton stood by her comment and said that it was misinterpreted, as she was relaying the concern that a Nassau County resident told her. She said she received the most support from the Jewish community after Blakeman’s criticism, “who told me this is not anti-Semitism, it is being an up-stander.”
At the news conference, Blakeman emphasized that he has done nothing more than create a directory of individuals.
“All we are doing here is pre-training and vetting those individuals and creating a database and a list,” Blakeman said. “That’s it. We’ve done nothing more.”
