Civil-rights leaders, retired law-enforcement personnel and Democrats in the Nassau legislature have demanded that County Executive Bruce Blakeman abandon his plans to create an emergency volunteer reserve of gun owners with vaguely defined duties to serve as deputy sheriffs.
Nassau County Sheriff Anthony LaRocco, who would command the volunteer force, approves of the idea, as does the presiding officer of the county legislature, Howard Kopel. But Nassau County police did not respond to a request for comment on the plan.
Blakeman stunned many in the county when he took out an advertisement in Newsday in mid-March, asking for volunteers who have gun licenses “for the protection of human life and property during an emergency.” Democrats and others said he was vague about what constituted an emergency.
About 25 volunteers are undergoing training and are expected to be ready for volunteer duty by the end of may.
Blakeman, a Republican, did not hold a news conference to announce his plan, which occurs in may cases when it comes to proposals by county officials, and has declined or ignored requests for interviews, including from the Press.
Blakeman was joined in calling for the volunteers along with LaRocca, who also has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
Under the plan, as outlined in Blakeman’s advertisements, the volunteers would have to be between 21 and 72, U.S. citizens, Nassau residents, a property or business owner, possess a pistol license, consent to a full background check and random drug testing, and provide a letter of fitness from a doctor, according to the advertisement, published March 17.
As of Feb. 15, 2024, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks gun statistics, an average of 108 gun-related deaths occurred each day in 2024, with 3,351 injured. A total of 147 of those who died of gun violence this year, 147 were teenagers and 31 were children. There have been 49 mass shootings in 2024, resulting in 80 deaths and 170 injuries. The archive said mass shootings have doubled in the U.S. in the last decade – but GVA also said that in 2023, gun violence deaths and injuries decreased by at least 8% compared to 2022, with some cities seeing decreases of more than 20%.
Blakeman has linked his administration to law-and-order themes. But crime is relatively low in Nassau County. According to Nassau police, the chances of becoming a crime victim in the county is one is 363, compared to 1 in 43 in the country as a whole. There were 7,394 crimes in Nassau in 2022, compared to 5,228 in 2021, police added.
His plan has hit fierce resistance in the county.
“We have a million questions,” said Susan Gottehrer, regional director of the Nassau chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, in Mineola.
“Why is it staffed in the sheriff’s office?” she asked. “What are these people actually supposed to do? How do we know this is not going to bleed into minority communities?”
For example, Gottehrer and others worried that Blakeman’s plan could bring about the tragic results such as what occurred in 2012, when Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American, was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida, by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic man who was a neighborhood watch captain. Zimmerman said he was suspicious of Martin, who wore a hoodie, but carried only a bottle of juice and candy. Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting, but the incident stirred widespread protests across the country.
Arnold Drucker, a Democratic legislator from Plainview, was among about 100 officials who turned out at a rally April 8 in front of the Theodore Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building in Mineola to call on Blakeman to abandon the plan.
“It sounded very dangerous,” Drucker said, upon first hearing the plan. “I think the court of public opinion would be to stop this.”
Drucker and others said they believed the reason for deputizing people is more political than anything else. “He’s intent on stoking the fears of residents,” Drucker told the Press.
“This is not the Wild West,” James Mulvaney, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told the Press. “We have police officers who are paid a lot of money. This isn’t a proposal to hire more cops.”
Nassau County has more than 2,500 police officers.
Mulvaney, of Long Beach, a former Newsday foreign correspondent and investigative reporter, said that New York City police officers have one of the best marksmanship records in the country.
“And they miss (intended targets) 70 percent of the time,” he said. “Now we’ll have people out there with less training and we’re putting them in high-stress situations. What’s going to be with the people who have no training at all.”
Blakeman’s ad calls for volunteers with some military or law-enforcement background, but does not specify how much or how recently, complained Fred Brewington, a Hempstead attorney and prominent civil-rights leader on Long Island.
“It’s scary, Brewington told the Press. “It’s an attempt to raise a posse. This is about his having a private militia.”
Republicans in Nassau have said little about the idea. But County Legislature Presiding Officer Kopel, in a statement, said “ New York State authorizes counties to solicit the help of citizen volunteers in the event of a catastrophe where emergency resources and personnel are stretched beyond capacity. These volunteers will help guard critical county infrastructure, freeing up existing police resources to protect the community.” A Kopel spokesman said the presiding officer would have no further comment.
