QPP 29: Interview with Patrick Ryder, Nassau County Police Department
As you may have seen on Twitter, Peter and Nick took a road trip about 45 minutes east of New York City to beautiful Mineola, New York, which just happens to be the county seat of Nassau County and home to the Nassau County Police Department, which is America’s 13th (might be down to 18th) largest police department.
Episode:
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/15047583
In one of his tweets, Peter said, “As @nselby drove, I sat in the way back of the station wagon and signaled truckers to honk their horns. After a while Nick said that if I didn’t stop, he would pull over immediately.“
The trip was to visit with Patrick J (“Paddy”) Ryder, the Commissioner of the Nassau County PD. Before he was appointed interim commissioner and then Commissioner, Paddy – who has more than 30 years in law enforcement – was the commanding officer of the NCPD’s Intelligence and Asset Forfeiture unit. Few people have been so engaged in the practical application of Intelligence-Led Policing than Paddy.
Listen to this episode.
Nick met Paddy in 2011, after Paddy had led an effort to combat an all-out shooting war between gang members affiliated with Bloods and Crips on Long Island. Peter and Nick wanted to speak with Paddy after the recent dramatic rise in attention to combating gang issues, especially with respect to Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13 has brought attention to the gang’s presence on Long Island – especially in Nassau County. In fact, just a week before we spoke with Paddy, he participated in a panel discussion that included President Donald J. Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and Congressman Peter King (R-NY) about gang violence.
After Paddy’s talk, in which he mentioned his community outreach, and (in our opinion respectfully) referred to “talking to these people,” Paddy apparently got a “concerned” phone call from a civil liberties group. But Paddy is a staunch defender of speaking with the minimal amount of political correctness possible.
We begin by discussing centralization of intelligence versus silos, and distribution of intelligence products, and quickly the conversation moved to marijuana, illegal immigration, officer involved shootings, and the approach that NCPD is taking towards opioid addiction. That includes an interesting discussion of drug pricing, and diversion court.
Paddy is a genuinely passionate police leader, discussing some thorny issues with a refreshing lack of overt talking points. He speaks extemporaneously in his proudly maintained Long Island cadence, that sometimes gets him in dutch with the civil liberties crowd.
But Paddy is unapologetically Paddy, and Peter and Nick have quite a bit of time for a man who’s led a department that has reduced crime rates to those seen in 1965.
Paddy is an Adjunct Professor of Criminal Justice and Intelligence-Led Policing at Nassau Community College, and he taught at Dowling College until 2015.
Timeline
1 min: information gathering and data centralization
5 min: gang database
10 min: marijuana and “field arrests”
12 min: MS-13
14 min: police enforcement and relations with immigrant communities
17 min: “undocumented” vs “illegal immigrant”
18 min: remaining unpolitical
19 min: officer involved shootings in Nassau County
21 min: “those people”
22 min: the mayor is the quarterback of the team
23 min: opioids
24 min: rook cop on the streets of Brooklyn
25 min: heroin and fentanyl, and saving lives.
28 min: diversion court
30 min: offering help
33 min: reductions in overdose deaths
36 min: ACLU upset after man deported after being arrested for box cutter
37 min: “I gotta follow the law…I’m the law and order guy.”
39 min: retrained use of deadly force
40 min: nipping controversy in the bud
41 min: technology
42 min: good relations with Jewish and Muslim communities
43 min: you need to know an environment in order to police that environment
45 min: Shoes on or off? More on the Muslim community.
46 min: “If you don’t have dialogue with the community, you’re out of business.”
