Escalating racial tensions across the nation and recent shootings of police officers in distant cities have local police on edge.
“The guys feel like they’re a walking target out there,” Riverhead PBA president Dixon Palmer said in an interview today. “And that’s not good.”
Southold Police Chief Martin Flatley said his officers “always feel like they have to be looking over their shoulders the whole time.”
“We don’t have the resources to double up on patrols the way they’re doing in the Nassau and Suffolk departments,” he said today. The department is shorthanded and summer is so busy sometimes it’s a struggle to put one officer in every car, he said.
It’s the same situation in Riverhead. So local departments are taking other steps to ensure the safety of their members.
“We have been on it since Dallas,” Riverhead Police Chief David Hegermiller said, referring to the July 7 ambush attack by a gunman that left five officers dead and nine others wounded. “I immediately addressed it with our officers and the PBA followed suit,” he said.
Palmer said cops are now routinely backing each other up.
“It doesn’t matter what kind of call it is,” the PBA president said. “You never know what’s waiting for you. We’re telling our guys ‘don’t go to a call by yourself.’”
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Tim Sini said in a statement yesterday the department implemented “additional counter measures were immediately implemented” after Sunday’s mass shooting in Baton Rouge, which left three police officers dead and three other officers injured.
The county police department is “in close contact with our law enforcement partners, including the FBI, receiving intelligence and updates on this attack,” Sini said.
“The public is asked to be vigilant and aware. Any suspicious activity should be immediately reported to law enforcement,” the commissioner said.
Nassau County Police announced “intensified patrols in areas of mass transit, public gatherings and near critical infrastructure,” according to a statement issued yesterday by acting Nassau County Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter.
“Social media outlets will be intensely monitored and we request the public’s assistance in any way possible to stop threats to public safety,” Krumpter said.
Community policing by small departments in small towns tends to be different in many ways from the experience in large police agencies, according to police.
Building working relationshops in the community is so important, Flatley said today, speaking at a meeting of the Southold Anti-Bias Task Force, of which he is an active member.
“I hope our officers treat people the way they want to be treated,” Palmer said. “Every one is a human being. Race doesn’t enter into it. Religion doesn’t enter into it. You treat everybody the same. That’s what my father [former police chief Roscoe Palmer] taught me when I first joined the department.”
