ITHACA, N.Y. — Tompkins County legislators are being asked to consider allowing probation officers to carry firearms when working in the field, particularly when completing home searches for individuals charged with gun-related, violent crimes.
Dan Cornell, director of probation in the county, outlined concerns for his officers, who he said have become increasingly reluctant to perform state-required home searches, in a presentation at the county legislature’s Public Safety Committee meeting last week.
Cornell is seeking to change the existing policy upheld by the Tompkins County Department of Probation and Community Justice, which does not authorize any probation staff to use, carry or possess a firearm while on duty.
Field work, including home visits, has always been central to probationary work, Cornell said. However, after county law enforcement agencies began receiving funding through the state’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) Initiative last year, home visits increased significantly to meet stricter supervision requirements for those on probation for crimes involving illegal firearms or other weapons.
Tompkins County became a “GIVE county” in July 2023 after the state’s Division of Criminal Justice, which administers the grants, identified the area as eligible for funding. The initiative is now active in 21 counties, 17 of which allow probation officers to carry firearms.
The department is requesting to arm seven probation officers — those Cornell selected to work the GIVE detail based on their experience, training and de-escalation skills. The probation department has a staff of 23 officers.
Officers would complete the same training as newly hired police officers before being issued guns, including psychological examinations. The firearms would be used only in field work, and would be kept locked in a safe while officers see clients in the human services building in downtown Ithaca.
Citing the state’s bail reform laws, which aim to effectively end the use of cash bail and jail for most cases involving misdemeanors and lower-level felonies, Cornell said that home visits have “become more dangerous.”
While bail reform laws affect pre-trial detention, Cornell said the laws have “significantly restricted categories of charges for which a person accused of a crime can be incarcerated prior to conviction or pretrial.” He said many individuals his office is supervising are placed on pretrial supervision.
His office now supervises probation for more violent offenders who, before the laws were implemented in 2020, would have “likely been incarcerated upon conviction,” Cornell told The Ithaca Voice later in an interview.
In 2022, Cornell said the probation department had 27 people under probation supervision for weapons charges, with 100 that had “some access to weapons.” The year before, in 2021, the department had 90 cases to supervise in the same category. In 2023, that number increased to 162 cases with weapons related charges.
Using the department’s risk assessment instruments, probation officers have determined that many of the individuals judges have sentenced to probation since 2021 were not “good candidates” for supervision.
As a result, from 2020-2023, probation cases with weapons related charges “essentially tripled,” Cornell said, citing the department’s records.
Many of the home visits are conducted with permission from the court, when the probation department suspects clients of violating probation by possessing firearms.
“We’re dealing with people with a proven propensity for violence who are illegally possessing firearms,” Cornell said. “And I’m being asked to ask my staff to go out and take those firearms away from those individuals with no way to defend themselves.”
Armed law enforcement officers rarely accompany probation officers on these visits. When they do, probation officers must lead the search, according to state law — they are the first ones in a home and do the physical searching.
On April 23, the GIVE search order confiscated a Springfield AR-15 rifle, loaded with 28 rounds of ammunition Cornell said is capable of penetrating the body armor probation officers wear on visits. Less than a week later, on April 30, the team confiscated two handguns and multiple rounds of ammunition from another client on probation for issuing a bad check, which is a nonviolent offense.
In situations where probation officers conduct unscheduled searches, which Cornell said are sometimes necessary, they have no control over who will be inside the home.
“They are essentially sitting ducks,” Cornell told committee members. “If an offender or an associate of an offender wanted to kill one of us, we have nothing but our sneakers to prevent that from happening.”
While Tompkins County probation officers have not been injured in the field since becoming part of the GIVE initiative, Cornell mentioned the death of an unarmed probation officer in Maryland that occurred June 2, who was stabbed and killed by a client while conducting a routine visit.
“It’s just become evident to me that it’s no longer safe for us to engage in those types of activities without the ability to defend ourselves,” Cornell said in an interview.
Cornell told council members that he was contacted by a director at the New York State Division of Probation and Correctional Alternatives earlier this year. He was told, as a strong suggestion, his department should discontinue home visits. He declined to do so.
“So I continue to go with my people. Because I won’t ask them to endanger their lives while I sit at home watching television,” Cornell said. “And that’s what I’m being asked to do.”
Public Safety Committee members were receptive to Cornell’s presentation and generally to his request. They expressed concerns about legislators adhering to the Reimagining Public Safety (RPS) Initiative, a county-city effort adopted in 2021 with 19 points aimed at “transforming public safety,” according to the document.
The RPS initiative aims to reduce reliance on law enforcement and build public trust in enforcement agencies. Legislators Shawna Black and Veronica Pillar, though empathetic to Cornell’s request, said arming probation officers could undermine the county’s efforts to achieve those goals.
Both suggested further investigation and research be conducted before moving a resolution allowing Cornell to move forward with the process beyond the committee and onto the full legislature for formal discussion.
“I would hate to undo some of the community work we’ve done by making one decision,” Black said.
Black suggested the committee hear from Monalita Smiley, the director of the newly formed Community Justice Center, an agency created in 2021 to advance the goals outlined in the RPS initiative, before voting on the issue.
The legislature hesitantly approved increased security measures at the human services building, where the probation department operates, in 2022. Those measures included hiring armed security guards and installing a metal detector, after a shooting occurred nearby on May 27 that same year. In June, committee members approved a resolution to purchase an X-ray machine to screen visitors.
“It’s cumulative and it’s getting worse,” Legislator Lee Shurtleff said in committee, referring to the legislature’s decision to place security measures at the human services building.
Shurtleff called the resolution a “no brainer,” and said that asking officers to remove guns without protection themselves does not make sense.
Tompkins County Sheriff Derek Osborne mimicked Shurtleff’s remarks later in an email, where he wrote that arming probation officers is a “matter of common sense.”
“Their jobs have the potential to be extremely dangerous,” Osborne wrote. “It’s always mystified me that they are not given the ability to protect themselves.”
Committee members are scheduled to resume the conversation at their next meeting on Aug. 27.
Clarification: Details were added after initial publication regarding bail reform laws pertaining to individuals accused of gun-related crimes. Cornell and his office have seen an increase of individuals placed on pretrial supervision as, in his opinion, a result of bail reform laws being enacted in the state.
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