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The Republican leader of a suburb bordering New York City has Democrats up in arms over a plan to deputize private citizens in emergency situations.
County Executive Bruce Blakeman has continued to irritate his opponents on the issues of crime and women’s rights as he seeks to fight for control of the state capital and give his constituents a greater say in local politics.
Lawmakers who oppose the plan call it a “militia,” compare it to Nazi “brownshirts” and held a rally outside the executive’s office asking him to stop the proposal.
“I think it’s completely disgraceful, first of all as a Jewish elected official, to imply that I would be associated with anything that represented the Nazi regime, especially the stormtroopers,” Blakeman told Fox News Digital. “It is absolutely reprehensible.”
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While Democratic critics of the plan allege that caretaker deputies could be used to quell Black Lives Matter or pro-Palestinian protests, Blakeman said all it has done is create a database of potential volunteers to help when county police find themselves overwhelmed
“It’s just a leftist, woke, progressive thing,” Blakeman said. “Now they claim they like the police, but they are the same people who wanted to defund the police.”
Interim officers would only be called in for devastating emergencies, he said, such as Superstorm Sandy, which devastated coastal sections of the county in 2012, a snowstorm in Western New York two years ago that froze the city of Buffalo for weeks, a power outage that lasted for days or an outbreak of violent riots.
Even then, he said, the interim officers would not patrol but would be deployed to protect infrastructure, including hospitals, government buildings, churches, mosques and synagogues. And they would only be used if there were not enough personnel after active duty officers and agents were activated.
“I wouldn’t activate anyone unless we had already declared all hands on deck and found out we were deficient,” he said. “This would just be an extreme circumstance, number one and number two, to disparage people who served with distinction in our police department, in the NYPD and in the military, I think it’s just a disgrace.”
During a news conference Monday, a reporter asked Blakeman if he thought the state’s National Guard, which came to the rescue of Long Island residents after destructive Superstorm Sandy amid power and fuel shortages in 2012, was “insufficient.”
“The National Guard is a function of state government that would fall under the purview of the governor,” Blakeman said. “As we’ve seen, obviously, the governor said there’s no crime problem in New York, and yet we have the National Guard in our subways.”
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To qualify for the program, applicants must already have a pistol license, a big hurdle in New York, consent to a background check and present a mental health history.
Provisional deputies would be subject to random drug testing, cannot have alcohol or drug problems and must be medically cleared as “fit for duty.”
Blakeman, commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey during 9/11, said most of the deputies would be retired members of law enforcement or military veterans.
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“This would be a very extreme circumstance, but what I’m doing is creating this database. God forbid it ever becomes necessary,” he told Fox News Digital. “Because I don’t want to be in an emergency situation where I have to fight.”
Local leaders have had the authority to make emergency deputations for more than a century, he said, but the new process allows candidates to be vetted beforehand and activated immediately.
Critics, however, have compared the provisional list to a paramilitary organization. County Legislature Minority Leader Delia DeRiggi-Whitton compared them to Nazi “brownshirts” in an interview with the local Patch newspaper.
“Some people have told me that it’s actually causing them a lot of anxiety,” he told the outlet. “It reminds them not only of the Wild West but also of uncertain times in Europe. There was something called the Brownshirts, which was basically civilians suddenly becoming part of law enforcement without the training.”
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State Senate candidate Kim Keiserman described the House Pro Tems as a “dangerous armed vigilante militia” in a post on X after attending a protest with Democratic lawmakers.
Blakeman is calling on county Democrats to remove DeRiggi-Whitton from her leadership role.
He said the candidates for provisional deputy are all “patriots,” mainly retired members of law enforcement and military veterans. According to his office, the applicants include a former county police deputy inspector who commanded the emergency services unit and marine aviation bureau, a decorated NYPD deputy inspector who led a precinct for a decade and a former US Army Ranger and hostage negotiator.
Blakeman, who already touts his county’s police department as the “most professional in the country,” said he partnered with Sheriff Anthony LaRocco for the interim deputy program only “for the protection of human life and property during a emergency”. None of those involved will have police powers unless the county executive’s office declares an emergency and activates volunteers.
His office has already sworn in 200 new uniformed county police officers, increased funding for the department and broken ground on a new police training complex as part of his vocal opposition to what he has described as policies of ” first the criminal” coming from the state capital.
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