Achievements
ATAG - Anti-Terrorism Analytical Group – formulated by the Sheriff, the ATAG group consists of the Sheriff; a Lieutenant from the Sheriff’s Office; former Chiefs of Police in Rockland County; four former Special Agents of The Federal Bureau of Investigation; a retired General; a former member of Military Intelligence; a person familiar with school safety and health issues; a County employee and retired military commander familiar with security issues; and a veteran Israeli Army Anti-Terrorism Specialist. They act as a “Think Tank” in order to generate ideas and concepts and to assist in reaching conclusions as to necessity and feasibility for Intelligence and Security procedures. Ideas are generated for training, informational posters, and to review Inter-Agency communication systems. This group has been very helpful in gearing this County in the right direction.
TRIAD
-
crime prevention and awareness of Senior Citizens. Deputies work
in collaboration with the local Rockland County TRIAD group which is
co-sponsored by the
Sheriff’s Department. This program is intended
to make law enforcement services more responsive to the needs and
concerns of older persons. It focuses on crime prevention;
Neighborhood Watch; home security; personal safety tips; knowledge of
frauds and scams; training in coping with telephone solicitation and
door to door salesmen; elder abuse prevention, recognition, and
reporting information; training for deputies and officers in
communicating with and assisting older persons; emergency preparation
plans by and for seniors; and victim assistance by and for seniors.
Since its inception the following have been completed:
● The participation of over 13 individual
Sr. Citizen Clubs, three Senior Citizen Councils, RSVP, Foster
Grandparents, DSS, Office of the Aging and AARP.
● Programs on crime prevention given to
approximately 1500 senior citizens throughout the County explaining the
TRIAD concept and its future goals.
● Created and distributed a Rockland County
TRIAD brochure sponsored by the Sheriff’s Department
● Implemented two TRIAD Workshops sponsored
by the Rockland County Sheriff’s Department with representatives from
other agencies such as Rockland Paramedics, District Attorney’s office,
Adult Protective Services, and Traffic Safety. Topics ranged from
stroke and the warning signs; elder law; driving safety; elder abuse;
victims services; and personal safety (scams, fraud, burglary, etc.)
Over 100 seniors attended and it was held at the Fire Training Center in
Pomona in January 1999.
● Developed a Nuisance Telephone
Call brochure to be distributed to seniors
● Created the Refrigerator Card
for emergency medical information
● Created the Medical Alert Program
for emergency medical information inside a
vehicle
● Developed a Speakers Bureau
● Produce monthly newsletters
on various topics of concern to seniors such as fraud,
scams, alerts,
etc.
● Created a web page which
is a link on the County’s site.
● Developed Doorknob Hangers
containing crime awareness messages.
● Distributed timers and emergency
beacon bulbs to the senior community
● Currently implementing a Calling
Card to be distributed to seniors
Bomb Unit -Deputies
deployed to explosive detection and disposal. The officers are
specifically trained in these areas in order to work with local
industries and schools regarding bomb threats. Over the past
several years this has become an increasing problem within our county
especially focusing on individual schools. Without having our own,
we have had to utilize the facilities of the State Police or neighboring
Bergen County in an emergency situation. Therefore, it has become
necessary and feasible for the Rockland County Sheriff’s Department to
establish their own expertise in this area. This was made possible
by funding through DCJS. Since Rockland is home to the nuclear
power plant Indian Point, having this Unit trained in explosive
detection and disposal enhances the citizen’s feelings of security if a
particular problem could arise.
●
K9 Bomb Detection – Lollie and Gunner
●
K9 Arson Detection - Scooter
Currently the Sheriff’s Department is responsible for all County
properties, thoroughfares, and complexes. The Department deploys
officers to these locations during various times of the day. This
creates a deterrence of crime to the residents by the officer’s
presence. This encompasses Rockland Community College and the
Mental Health facility along with all County government buildings.
Computer Crime Unit - Officers are assigned to computer
forensic and investigation working with the community on various
computer crimes. They educate the police and public regarding
on-line crime. Evidence of traditional crimes, computer-related
crimes, and missing juveniles are among the common scenarios.
Protecting children from on-line dangers has become a major task for law
enforcement in this millennium. There have been numerous instances
whereby adult pedophiles have made contact with minors through on-line
chat rooms, established a relationship with the child and later made
contact for the purpose of engaging in criminal sexual activities.
Therefore, it is essential to educate and empower the community to
protect themselves against on-line threats and equip our law enforcement
officers with the proper training and techniques to respond to such
crime. The Computer Crime Unit has
made over 130 felony arrests, with convictions of sexual predators who prey on children.
Marine Unit – Deputies are assigned
to the Rockland County Sheriff’s Department Marine Unit Navigational
enforcement. This Unit has recently been revitalized to patrol the
Hudson River. We have been able to put community policing on the
waterways of this
County. New York State is a leading state for
recreational boating with 3.5 million acres of lakes and 10,000 miles of
coastline and it is extremely important to have the visibility of law
enforcement on the waterways. Approximately 500,000 motor boats
are registered in New York State and it is a necessity to have police
presence with that amount of individuals on the waters.
C.A.P. (Crime Awareness Program) - Deputies work with
individual school districts throughout the County and focus on crime
within our society. Students receive a tour of the County Judicial
system and observe criminal court proceedings, ask questions of judges,
visit the county jail while role-playing. They participate in the
arrest, handcuffing, frisking and shackling procedure. Still
accompanied by their teachers and/or parents, they visit the Sheriff’s
law enforcement museum and learn about law enforcement as a profession.
The student is then required to write a reaction paper to convey their
experiences and fundamentals derived from the entire process. At
each school’s graduation ceremony or on awards night they are given
certificates of participation and merit. The Judges, Sheriff and
the Chiefs sign the certificates. The concept of this program is
for the youth of our County to develop an insight into all aspects of
our criminal justice system.
C.A.R.E. (Computed Aided Rescue Efforts) -
The Rockland
County Child C.A.R.E. Program is a pro-active program designed to
protect and educate the children of Rockland County on the issues of
child abuse and abduction. It is a cooperative effort among law
enforcement, education, and business communities of Rockland County and
New York
State. The Rockland County Sheriff’s Deputy goes out to
individual schools that are sponsored by business organizations and
corporations and photo imaging is taken of the students within each
elementary school in grades K-8. Upon completion of this process,
the information is entered, containing basic child information, plus the
photo image. This allows the Sheriff’s Department to print the
text and picture on a laser or ink jet printer and prepare a “packet” of
information to be sent, via modem, to the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children (NCMEC) within minutes of an abduction. In
addition to this, each grade is given a safety training and education
session. This is delivered in 30-minute presentations jointly by a
Rockland County Deputy Sheriff and a local D.A.R.E/Youth Officer,
working in consort with the classroom teacher.
RCPIN – Development, implementation and maintenance of
the Rockland County Police Infrastructure which enables Village,
Town, City and County police jurisdictions in the sharing of information
collection. Information will be shared with three levels of government,
local, state and federal. Most importantly, it will allow access
by
State and Federal Homeland security organizations to the routine
criminal activity that occurs and recorded at the local level. It is
valuable information regarding people, places and vehicles involved with
incidents, cases, arrests, property, warrants, tickets and accidents
stored in County Law Enforcement databases.
Mounted Unit - provides enforcement
and security functions. The Unit consists of six sworn officers.
They are assigned to engage in activities such as ethnic and cultural
fairs, crowd control, street fairs, policing high crime areas and
covering all major local sporting
events and ceremonial occasions.
The department is aware of the increasing and highly successful use of
mounted officers in traditional functions as a high visibility crime
deterrent. Almost without exception, the mounted police officers
have proven to be as effective in performing their normal police
functions as their counterparts in patrol cars while also positively
influencing the community’s perception of the police. The mounted
police officer has the ability to talk to people in a positive fashion
by being able to have readily accessible contact.
Implementation of Operation Rockland Watch. Operation
Rockland Watch seeks the help of ALL the citizens of Rockland County by
asking for their vigilance concerning possible terrorist activities.
ORW requires support from the law enforcement/public
safety/business/civilian community in order to be successful. It
required the help of the private citizen to be aware of suspicious
activities and asked the general public to immediately report to their
local Police persons involved in suspicious acts such as photographing,
sketching, videotaping, loitering or sitting in parked vehicles in the
areas of potential terrorist targets.
Reserve Unit - The County of Rockland Sheriff's
Department has a voluntary Sheriff’s Deputy Reserve Force. This is
comprised of 100 volunteers that are called to work for various details
throughout the County. They must attend mandatory training
classes outlined by the Rockland County Police and Public Safety Academy
curriculum and are utilized whenever the department is in need of extra
patrols. Each of the members has been trained in CPR and Basic
First Aid.
Rockland has implemented a Mutual Aid Rapid Deployment Unit, and
a Regional Entry and Counter Terrorism Team. This
provides mutual aid to one another as events dictate. They’re a unique
concept of high visible deterrence by using teams as a prevention and
response Unit in case an incident takes place. High visible security
deterrence screens can be set up around assessed areas in times of
heightened alert. The R.E.A.C.T. Unit, first in the State of NY to
be an organized regional team dedicated to proactive counter-terrorism
deterrence as well as response to acts of terrorism, is modeled after
the Hercules Unit of operations in the City of New York. It will
be used to provide perimeter visible deterrence security at highly
assessed target areas in the County. The team will be deployed in
pop-up operations so there is no static or fixed assigned areas but the
ability to move in order to protect our schools, power facilities,
government buildings, religious institution, public events. One
Unit is the multi formulated R.E.A.C.T. Unit. The second is the
M.A.R.D. Team to assist police departments that do not have the ability
and resources readily available. It provides a
coordinated defense of the county, using these units to safeguard
critical infrastructures such as landmarks, houses of worship, bridges,
train stations, nuclear power plants, schools, chemical/petroleum
storage facilities, electrical power stations and waterways. One of the
problems seen in 9/11 tragedy is too many personnel responded to the
same emergency, leaving other parts of the city exposed. Terrorists
exploit such situations by staging large diversionary events, followed
by second, more serious ones which one may be under-prepared due to
overstaffing at the first incident. Such Units provide needed resources
for a collaborated response to the situation.
Goals
● Accreditation – all
Divisions
● Continued Counter-terrorism
and Federal
● Traffic Safety
● Continue to keep our public
safe and keep crime down and driving it back
Enhance our network to expand and share data with law enforcement agencies outside the borders of Rockland, specifically the county’s of Broome, Cattaraugus, Chautaugua, Dutchess, Genesee, Jefferson, Livingston, Montgomery, Niagra, Ulster and Warren. All are using the same record management system and Rockland has implemented a “regional data sharing” software product that would prove to be an invaluable tool to our entire law enforcement community. This proposed data sharing network would allow law enforcement personnel from nearly 40 different agency’s that span geographically to every corner of New York State to share critical data.