Debra Mulé: Disbanding secretive ‘militia’ would boost public safety

Last year, Nassau County was ranked the safest municipality of its size in America by U.S. News & World Report for the fifth consecutive year. This is a byproduct of smart investments in law enforcement that ensure that the Nassau County Police Department and our village and city police departments are well trained, properly equipped and robustly supported by the public and their partners in government.

As a member of the County Legislature’s Public Safety Committee, I am committed to building on this success and safeguarding the progress that we have made in community-focused policing. That’s why, on Feb. 4, my colleague Legislator Scott Davis and I filed a lawsuit against County Executive Bruce Blakeman that seeks to immediately disband his provisional special deputy sheriff initiative — his private militia, for short — and to compel him to comply with public information laws so that the public knows exactly what its taxpayer dollars are funding.

Since filing this lawsuit, my colleagues and I have received a tremendous amount of feedback from our constituents, much of it supportive. Some who disagree, however, contend that our action would deprive county residents of another layer of protection. But when you take a close look at what the program actually is, ending the militia would improve, not hamper, public safety.

The county currently has more than 2,500 highly trained professional officers in its ranks, and in the event of a crisis, there are dozens of similarly trained village, city, state, transit and state university police forces we can call on to bolster those ranks. Under New York County Law 655, sheriffs may deputize those trained officers during an emergency — but the county executive lacks the authority to create an armed civilian force, as he has done.

Even if Blakeman’s actions were lawful, this is a case in which more is certainly not better. Regardless of the professional experience of these 26 militia recruits — that we know of — the residents of Nassau County will not derive any benefit from calling up a minimally trained force with firearms that could potentially insert itself into chaotic situations and make them even more so.

Moreover, based on the matrix of accredited law enforcement agencies operating in our county, a militia is unnecessary — and my experience during Superstorm Sandy further illustrates this point.

During that once-in-a-century storm, residents of my hometown of Freeport and communities across Long Island’s devastated South Shore benefited from the service and protection of the National Guard, a highly trained force that specializes in responding to catastrophic natural disasters. We were grateful for the Guard’s efforts, which brought us relief and security. Allowing a militia to operate in such a chaotic situation, with little clarity about whom it would answer to, how its members would be identified and the level of their authority, would be a recipe for disaster.

The fact that this militia has been formed, trained and operated in near-total secrecy only intensifies our concerns. Last year, members of the Democratic minority caucus wrote to Blakeman, demanding that he disclose essential details of the initiative, including who was being recruited, the scope of their training, the specific weapons they would carry, the total cost of the program to taxpayers, and more. After Blakeman ignored our requests, we filed a formal Freedom of Information Law request to get answers — and the county executive ignored those inquiries, too, violating the law in the process. If this is such a great idea, why break transparency laws to operate it under the cloak of darkness?

The greatest responsibilities we must all contend with in matters of public safety and law enforcement are the preservation and protection of life. Introducing further confusion into highly pressurized situations only increases the risk of a preventable tragedy, which would subject the taxpayers of Nassau County to significant liability for an incident that could have been avoided.

Blakeman’s militia is unlawful, ill-conceived and dangerous — and it has nothing to do with protecting public safety. It’s time to put an end to this needless diversion and leave this critical work to the trained professionals.

Debra Mulé represents Nassau County’s 6th Legislative District and is the Legislature’s alternate deputy minority leader