When the Republican leader of a suburban New York county began hiring armed citizens two years ago to be deployed as special deputy sheriffs on his orders in times of emergency, critics accused him of creating an unlawful, unnecessary, personal militia.
The leader, Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive and a close ally of President Trump, dismissed the concerns as political carping by Democrats. The goal, Mr. Blakeman said, was “another layer of protection” for the county’s 1.4 million residents. Those joining the planned 75-member force would be well qualified and well trained, he said.
But in a filing in state court on Tuesday, the plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to halt the program challenged that assertion, arguing that the little they had learned through the discovery process about those who have been deputized suggests their credentials are lacking.
Without disclosing identities, the filing, by two Democratic county legislators, says that four people involved in the program “appear to have either been arrested or have had warrants issued for their arrest.”
Five appear to have been in their 70s when they enrolled in the program, well past New York’s mandatory retirement age of 62 for most police officers, the filing says. Six belong to the county’s auxiliary police force, the plaintiffs say, underscoring the program’s superfluous nature.
The filing also says that one person enrolled in the program is a member of Mr. Blakeman’s “extended family” who has no background in law enforcement and works in real estate. Another, the filing says, is a doctor who was a member of Mr. Blakeman’s transition team.
The résumés indicate that the special deputies picked to date are unqualified “compared to the people who do this for living” and support the argument that the program is ill conceived, Carey Dunne, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in an interview.
Mr. Blakeman, in a statement, defended the program. “All special deputies went through an extensive background check and were trained in criminal law and firearms, and all had valid New York State carry permits,” he said, calling them “respected members of the community, many of whom served in the military and professional law enforcement.”
The doctor is the Nassau County Police Department surgeon, according to a county official.
Mr. Blakeman, the Republican nominee for governor in New York this year, has not hesitated to wade into contentious issues. He has deputized county police detectives to engage in immigration enforcement and ordered that transgender athletes be barred from playing at county-owned facilities unless they are competing on coed teams or teams that match their birth gender.
When the special deputy program began, he said he wanted a group of armed people he could quickly deploy “to protect infrastructure or government buildings or schools or hospitals, that would free up” the county’s 2,600-officer police force in case of a hurricane, blackout or other disaster. The deputies have yet to be activated.
“I didn’t want to be in a situation where we had a major emergency and we needed help and people were not properly vetted or trained,” he said. Military veterans and retired members of law enforcement would get priority in hiring, the job posting said. Applicants were required to have a valid pistol license and would be paid $150 a day upon being activated.
Critics, including county Democrats, condemned Mr. Blakeman for bypassing legislators to create the program and shrouding it in secrecy by denying public records requests about it. Giving police powers to civilian gun owners, they said, could lead to accidental shootings, and they argued that the squad was an implied threat to minorities and the county executive’s political foes.
The issue grew especially heated when Mr. Blakeman said in a television interview soon after the program was announced that the special deputies might be used to patrol chaotic demonstrations. Asked in the interview whether he could declare a political protest an emergency, he said, “if the riot was to a level where they were burning buildings.” (He later said of the program: “Of course, it would not be used for political purposes.”)
The Democratic lawmakers sued Mr. Blakeman; the county sheriff, Anthony LaRocco; and the county government in State Supreme Court in Nassau County in February 2025. They asked that the special deputy squad be disbanded and declared illegal and that no public money be spent on it.
“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,” they wrote in the suit. In response, Mr. Blakeman called the lawmakers “a disgrace for bringing this frivolous action.”
In October, a judge heard oral arguments in the case, denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss the suit and rejected a counterclaim against the plaintiffs; a second motion to dismiss is pending.
Ed Shanahan is a rewrite reporter and editor covering breaking news and general assignments on the Metro desk.
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