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News 12 Staff

LIPP427B_2025-04-27-12-18-24

Welcome back to Power and Politics. It's being called a crisis in blue. Police officer suicides continue to rise across New York and the entire country. Right now, lawmakers in Albany are proposing a bipartisan bill to create a statewide peer to peer mental health support program for police officers. Last month, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman posted on social media after a Long Island police officer died by su. He said in part, quote, We mourn the tragic loss of one of our own to suicide. Our hearts are with their loved ones in the entire Nassau County Police Department family during this difficult time. Earlier this month, NYPD detective David Rodriguez suddenly took his own life. He was with the department for nearly 20 years, worked on the Gun Violence suppression division, was a member of the New York finest baseball team. He leaves behind his wife. And 3 children. According to the organization Blue Help, over 900 officers have died by suicide since 2019, 106 of them being in New York. Blue Help says this year alone 6 have died by suicide in the state, and law enforcement officers are 3 times more likely to die by suicide than in the line of duty. Joining us right now is the Nassau County PBA president Tommy Shevlin to talk more about this. Thanks for coming in. It's a hard topic to talk about, but it's a topic that has to be talked about, right? Absolutely, Rich, thank you so much for having me and for highlighting this epidemic. What can be done? I mean thinking officer to officer here to be able to talk about this and be able to try to save lives so difficult to do. Yes, what we need to do is actually pretty simple. We need to humanize and normalize getting help for mental health, mental wellness it needs to be taken as a priority just like if, if a police officer gets hurt in the line of duty. And everybody's asking them, how can I help you? What do you need? The job is supporting them. We need to treat mental illness, mental health issues the same way. What's the greatest barrier to making that happen? Trust. It's, it's, it's all about trust and and thinking that they're going to lose their job and be seen as weak that the part their partners people on the street will not want to work with them anymore if they have issues. Are those real concerns? Absolutely, absolutely, but as, as we speak today, like you just opened up with, we do have some laws up in Albany trying to be passed that I'm a big advocate of pushing for peer support, confidentiality. For a police officer to police officer support, um, we also need the department's municipalities to buy into this. We need to start treating this the way that it needs to be handled where mental health, mental issues are not dealt with the same way as discipline. We need to give a path for recovery. And I'm living proof that it does work and people do deserve a second chance. Officers see some of the most traumatic circumstances imaginable here in Nassau County, but all across the country on the job. And that has to be dealt with, right? There, there has to be a component where officers, first responders have resources available to them, have places where they can address mental health issues. Absolutely think about it. Our whole career is day in and day out of trauma trauma building up every day you can possibly. Go to work and see all of the death, child death, which is the worst, these car accidents, um, nobody calls 911 for something positive. They call us for the worst moment in their life, and we see that over and over and over again over a 20-30 year career. We were talking off camera. Suffolk Sheriff Errowhuulon has been very outspoken in trying to make sure they're. Resources there for law enforcement and it's something you're taking very seriously you're very passionate about as well absolutely Errol Tulan, the sheriff is is a great human being. He has personal experience with this unfortunately like myself, and we, we will work together to, to get this taken care of. It's not just police officers, first responders, and this also affects all of your viewers, the community, our community. it's a stigma it's a stigma out there and we need to break the stigma together we need to support each other and and really really address the elephant in the room. What was your experience? So I myself um battled depression, anxiety, substance abuse disorder, uh, PTSD. And I, I thank God was able to get help and here I am and I'm living proof that you can be in your darkest moment in a dark place and I have, I have the experience on how to get out of that place and not just survive but thrive so I feel like we all do deserve another chance. We just need to to trust the process and we need buy in from the top. Down and then we also have to start taking care of ourselves and each other. We need to start asking each other, are you OK? and not be afraid to ask that now I have to think that would have a big impact coming from you leading the union advocating for your members and having gone through it yourself. How important is it for people in these types of positions, the Suffolk sheriff, the head of the PBA to be talking about this from a personal perspective. But it's, I, I think it's a game changer. This has been quiet for so long. The stigma, it's been silent for so long, um, but this is new, you know, just because the those statistics are outrageous 900 police officers and the only reason why we have them is because Blue Help was formed and they started keeping statistics before that we didn't have the numbers, so this isn't anything new, it's just that now we're highlighting it. Do you believe that the numbers will start to decline or is it your sense that not enough is being done and we could continue to see a deadly and tragic upswing? The numbers will not decline until we have buy in. We need to start taking this from the bottom up and top down until people start addressing this and it's OK to go get help. It's OK to go talk to a therapist and we need to normalize that and until we start doing. That and getting people help, um, it's, it will not change. 11 of the most important things that people don't realize for your viewers out there, families, our families suffer, police officers especially our families suffer because people like myself that have PTSD. When we're not taking care of ourselves, they're the ones that that deal with this um in a bad way when we're home so we need our families out there to start being aware of this and and start reaching out for help for their loved ones. Uh it's so important again and I really appreciate you coming in here sharing your story and. Continuing to push to help really save lives, especially on the front line. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for having me. All right, still to come here on Power and Politics, school districts are finalizing their budget plans, but how much of your tax bill actually goes to your local schools? A look at the numbers in our series Taxing Long Island straight ahead.

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LIPP427C_2025-04-27-12-18-45

Welcome back. As school districts prepare to submit their final budget plans to residents, we are taking a closer look today at just how much of your property tax bill is dedicated to funding local education. Former state senator John Brooks says he was campaigning for re-election a few years ago when he heard from a retired couple who said something that shook him to his core. They had just realized they couldn't keep the house. And she said to me, If they did what you're talking about that plan, we could stay here. And that really that rattled me. In New York, school taxes make up the vast majority of your property tax bill. Across the state, more than 60% of your bill goes to schools. Here on Long Island, that number pushes closer or even exceeds 70%, depending on where you live. In 2021, then Senator Brooks authored a bill that would have shifted the school tax burden away from many. Residential property owners with the potential to cut taxes in many Long Island communities by as much as 50%. That would change the world. Brooks says the plan would have particularly benefited communities with small commercial tax bases like his hometown of Seaford, but the legislation never made it out of committee. The people in the legislature in the city of New York in particular didn't want to do that, and they had a perception. That Long Island is rich. The school tax burden is clearly top of mind for many of you who are responding to our taxing Long Island stories with comments from people like James who writes school taxes are increasing too much, and Danielle, who adds starting to pack, getting ready to leave, sad though, can't retire here on Long Island while. Brooks' plan never came to fruition. He says current lawmakers in Albany need to find a solution and fast. We legalize gambling, sports betting, marijuana sales. Every time we had a new source of revenue that could have helped us fix the problems in school funding, we came up with some other new game to give money to. All right, well, every week we're going to continue to tackle the issues that bother you most and help you look for solutions to what's making life on Long Island so taxing. Watch News 12 Tuesdays and Thursdays starting at 5 a.m. for more of our taxing Long Island series. And Long Islanders are looking for answers on what's going on with their Social Security benefits. Hundreds of people attended a town hall this past week hosted by Democratic Congress members Tom Swazzy and Laura Gillet. They spoke about how Social Security benefits could be affected by federal workforce layoffs. A recent report says the Trump administration plans to cut 7000 agency employees. That's all the time we have this week. We'll see you again next week for another edition of Newswell's Power and Politics. I'm Rich Brae. Have a great rest of your day.

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