County meets with sheriff, talks threat assessment | Top Stories

Franklin County Sheriff Jay D. Cook was joined by Lt. Carl Demers to talk with the legislature about creating and filling a part-time, threat assessment management coordinator position at the sheriff's office.

According to Demers, the state's Threat Assessment Management Program was created by Executive Order 18 from Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul.

Demers said the executive order calls for the creation and operation of threat assessment management teams that incorporate community stakeholders.

“For example, if we hear a report on a child, or an issue, it gives them an avenue to meet as a group and discuss this person and say how can we help and agree before it turns into an incident where local law enforcement is involved or heaven forbid there's a violent act,” he said.

Demers said counties around the state, including Albany and Monroe counties have implemented assessment management programs.

According to Demers, in one instance an individual was on a pathway that looked like it was going to turn into a situation where law enforcement was involved and the threat assessment team was able to get them assistance and avoid a violent incident.

“It's designed to try and catch these things early,” Cook said, “Every time there is an incident you hear there were red flags, many times people go onto social media before they do these destructive events and it either goes undetected or someone doesn't 't report it.”

According to Cook, the idea behind a threat assessment team is for all of the county's entities to have input and get information to the threat assessment coordinator in the event there are red flags prior to a violent incident.

“They would get a group together and assess this information, assess the threat, that is what it is designed to do, to try and prevent these things from happening before they happen,” he said.

County Manager Donna J. Kissane said there is grant funding available for a part-time coordinator position.

After initially discussing an hourly rate of $25 per hour legislators agreed to increase the salary range to $25 to $35 per hour.

“I think to get a good qualified person in this position it needs to be well paid, it needs to be attractive for someone to want to commit and put the effort in,” Cook said.

Andrea M. Dumas, R – Malone, asked if a coordinator needs to have law enforcement training.

“That's up to the county, some counties use sworn peace officers, some counties do not,” Cook said.

Cook said investigative work would be involved with the position and ideally a candidate for the coordinator position would have a background in the field of law enforcement.

“If there's an incident in the county where it is already happening this person is probably not going to respond to the incident, it's going to be law enforcement within the county,” he said, “But this person is going to be going out and investigating possible threats that someone has made, interviewing them and maybe interviewing family. They are going to be in the community trying to figure out if this threat is legit or not. There are going to be unhappy people to deal with.”

At a meeting Thursday after the workshop, legislators passed a resolution to create and fill the proposed position.

The management coordinator will comply with Executive Order 18 to support the county's capability to prevent targeted violence and domestic terrorism, according to the county's resolution, which states the part-time position is for up to 17 hours per week.

Executive order 18, preventing and responding to domestic terrorism, was signed by Governor Hochul on May 18, 2022, after the mass shooting at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, on May 14, 2022, by an individual motivated by racist conspiracy theories.

A portion of the order called for the creation and operation of threat assessment management teams to be understood of law enforcement, mental health professionals, school officials, and other stakeholders, who are tasked with identifying, assessing, and mitigating the threat of targeted violence in counties across New York, according to the executive order.

Demers said depending on the size of the county the team may meet once a month or on a quarterly basis.

The county's resolution states that the coordinator position will be paid through grant funding and that when grant funding is no longer available, the position will be reevaluated.