HIGHLAND — The Town of Highland took steps to re-establish their police constabulary, which was disbanded in April of 2022, in their meeting on Tuesday, September 9.

Former New York Police Department (NYPD) Officer Rich Miller gave a presentation about the potential re-establishment of Highland’s police constabulary. Before handing off proceedings to Miller, Town Supervisor John Pizzolato set the stage: “We were able to successfully get a referendum on the ballot for this election, so all of the community will have the opportunity to weigh in and vote on if they would like to re-establish the constabulary and he’s gonna give us some insight on how to do that.”

Miller introduced himself to the audience: “Who am I? I’ve got 37 years of law enforcement experience starting in New York City. For the last 15 years I’ve run, as chief constable, a police constabulary in Ulster County, and we’ve been 100% successful with that program.” Miller explained the constabulary’s role in a community: “A police constabulary is a local law enforcement agency. They should be there to help local people with local problems… you call, you have a problem with your neighbor, we’ll come and fix it; it doesn’t need to escalate.” 

Miller expounded on this concept, citing traffic management, low-level crimes in parks, and trespassing, as offenses that could be addressed by a police constabulary. “It doesn’t need to cost a huge amount of money; there’s plenty of grants out there, which I’ve been successful getting over the years many times.” Miller emphasized that the re-establishment of the constabulary would take some time to do properly and would require the creation of a patrol guide, a specification of duties and responsibilities, and personnel. “There’s an immense amount of training,” said Miller.

When asked about the town’s liability in the event of a shooting, Miller said, “Under criminal procedure law 2.10, 2.20, and 2.30, we have qualified immunity as long as training is met. If you’re already a police officer or a peace officer, you already have qualified immunity, you need to maintain that each year with an annual weapons re-qualification, which I can give… if something like that happens, that’s a use-of-force case, and as long as your acting within good faith inside your duties and responsibilities, then there is no liability for the town.” In addition to this protection, Miller recommended getting a police professional package, costing approximately $1,900 a year, which will cover “any overages or any lawsuits that arise from a use-of-force  [case].”

Miller provided some context on a use-of-force scenario: “First of all, we don’t wanna shoot anyone, that’s really not the goal. A use of force is, in my personal opinion, a failure of law enforcement. If you’ve been out there and you’ve diffused the situation properly, which I spent my whole career doing, you should never need to use force, or if you have to, it’s going to be a very limited amount.” Miller explained that New York State just updated the use-of-force rules, which are governed by very specific guidelines and limitations; he said if these rules are followed properly, then there is no liability.

Supervisor Pizzolato added, “We looked into the NYMIR (New York Municipal Insurance Reciprocal) policy- it’s around $2,000 a year…. NYMIR in general is for small municipalities of our size, and so they offer these quantified packages for constabularies because they’re so cost effective and they work in tandem with the other departments.”

Miller said he’s been an instructor for almost 30 years and has trained constabularies in Port Jervis, Lumberland, and Tusten. “There isn’t a peace officer agency within this state that I haven’t actually talked to at some point. I do write a lot of their policy for them; many years ago now, when they switched from the rather small 35 hour training to 99 hour- and now, it’s 278 hours, not including firearms- I wrote that curriculum for the state.” Miller said he receives a healthy amount of calls to write use-of-force policies, taser policies, and arrest policies, in addition to organizing joint-task-force initiatives. 

“You guys are in a location where you have state police, and you also have the sheriff’s department; we would work hand in hand with them because we’re not looking to take over their job, we’re looking to alleviate the necessity for additional staffing.” Miller said the police constabulary would be a collection of part-time officers supervised by a chief constable, who signed off on all paperwork and organized the constabulary schedule. He added that officers would be armed and required to wear a bullet-proof vest: “You must wear a vest to stop the bullet you are carrying, because every single call you go to involves a gun, the one you have; even if you never draw it, somebody else might want to.”