Democrats Sue Over Bruce Blakeman’s Armed Volunteers in Nassau County
Democratic lawmakers in Nassau County, N.Y., have sued to end a program created last year by Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, that enlisted armed citizens to volunteer as “special deputies” whom he would activate in case of emergency.
The lawsuit called the program an illegal and secretive militia that “represents a substantial and ongoing waste of public funds” in the county, which is just east of New York City.
The suit was filed in State Supreme Court in Mineola on Tuesday by two county legislators, Debra Mulé and Scott Davis.
It named Mr. Blakeman and his administration, along with the sheriff, Anthony LaRocco, and charged that Mr. Blakeman had created the program without the County Legislature’s authorization.
Blakeman administration officials were trying to “shroud their illegal program in secrecy” by illegally denying legislators’ Freedom of Information Act requests for details, the suit said.
“Authorizing minimally trained private citizens to wield force on behalf of the government — and during an emergency no less — poses clear and obvious safety risks,” it said.
In response, Mr. Blakeman criticized Ms. Mulé and Mr. Davis as “a disgrace for bringing this frivolous action and defaming the volunteers, many of whom are retired military and law enforcement.”
At a news conference outside the courthouse on Wednesday, Democratic county legislators said the lawsuit was meant to address a power grab by Mr. Blakeman and a lack of transparency surrounding the special deputies program.
“Nassau County is wasting taxpayer dollars on a militia to protect us from problems we don’t have,” said Seth Koslow, a Democrat in the Legislature who plans to run for Mr. Blakeman’s seat in November and who called the program “political theater” from Mr. Blakeman.
A lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Josh Kelner, said Mr. Blakeman had overreached since the law “doesn’t allow the government to call up private citizens and hand them badges.”
Mr. Blakeman has allied himself with President Trump and gained national attention by thrusting himself into the culture wars. On Tuesday, he announced a partnership with the Trump administration to empower Nassau County detectives to be trained and deputized like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to arrest undocumented immigrants who commit crimes.
The plan for a volunteer force caused a firestorm among many Democrats last March, when Mr. Blakeman said he would call upon residents with gun permits to volunteer to join his corps of “provisional emergency special deputy sheriffs.” It plunged Nassau into a national debate about authoritarianism.
Mr. Blakeman’s political opponents accused him of creating, with little notice or explanation, an unsanctioned militia answering only to him, for his own political purposes. They circulated petitions and held rallies pillorying both the program and the lack of details on training, recruitment and the parameters of the deputies’ duties. Giving police powers to civilian gun owners could result in accidental shootings and is an implied threat to minorities and political enemies, they said.
But Mr. Blakeman dismissed criticism that the program is politically motivated and said it was about vetting and training people to provide “another layer of protection” for residents in case of a major emergency.
He told reporters at one point that the deputies could be activated to patrol chaotic demonstrations, “if the riot was to a level where they were burning buildings.” But he later said that protests would be left to the police and that the special deputies “would not be used for political purposes.”
Delia DeRiggi-Whitton, the Democratic minority leader of the County Legislature, told reporters in April that she had heard from Jewish residents who likened Mr. Blakeman’s initiative to Hitler’s paramilitary forces before World War II.
At the time, Mr. Blakeman, who is Jewish, called the comparison offensive and demanded her resignation. On Wednesday, he raised this issue again, saying, “The antisemitic statements, denigrating these good citizens by labeling them as Nazi brownshirts, disqualify them for public service.”
Carey Dunne, a public interest lawyer representing the plaintiffs, called the civilian force “an authoritarian power grab in the heart of suburban America, where a handpicked group of armed vigilantes operates secretly at the beck and call of an unchecked executive.”
Government leaders setting up their own bands of armed forces should set off alarms, said Mr. Dunne, a lawyer with Free and Fair Litigation Group. In light of the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, he added, “it sends a signal to others in the country who might be emboldened to set up their own militias.”
Natalie Chandler contributed reporting.
