One sheriff’s deputy and one police officer were killed in a single incident in near the city of Syracuse last week.
A third police officer was shot and killed in New York City during a routine traffic stop in late March.
A fourth officer was seriously injured just last week in a shooting in Albany. That officer will reportedly need months of physical therapy to recover from a shattered femur.
“I think we need to do something to end the open season on police officers,” Sheriff Craig DuMond, president of the New York State Sheriffs' Association, told Capital Tonight.
DuMond, who is also the elected sheriff of Delaware County, wants the state Legislature to reinstate judicial discretion, as it pertains to a perpetrator’s dangerousness.
In last year’s state budget, some discretion was returned to judges to jail people awaiting trial for alleged crimes, but DuMond feels it was not enough.
“We have done some tweaking [of bail reform] over the past couple of years, and for that we are grateful,” DuMond said. “But clearly, we have to do more.”