Long Island lawmakers have sued Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and a local sheriff for a program sanctioning a taxpayer-funded militia of armed civilians shrouded “in secrecy.” The suit challenges the legality of the “special deputy sheriffs” program announced in March 2024 to public outcry by Blakeman,

The corps created by Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, is “an authoritarian power grab in the heart of suburban America,” said a lawyer representing county lawmakers.

The suit claims a Republican county executive's creation of an armed unit of volunteer residents amounts to an “illegal, taxpayer-funded civilian militia.”