Could One County’s Success With ‘Red Flag’ Orders Be a Model?

Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll look at the one county in New York State where judges have issued the most red flag gun orders. We’ll also get a review of a play about a City Council from a New York City Council member.

It happens more often in Suffolk County on Long Island than anywhere else in New York State: A judge issues a so-called “red flag” order, and the authorities remove weapons from the home of someone (most often male) who has made a threat (usually against himself).

More than 100 times in the past two years and 10 months, such orders have defused dangerous situations.

That is hardly enough to make New York’s red flag law a remedy for gun violence. But after horrific mass shootings at a grocery store in Buffalo; an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas; and a hospital Tulsa, Okla., policymakers are struggling to find ways to keep guns out of the hands of people in crisis. Cases in Suffolk County reviewed by several of my colleagues point to a basic fact of American life: the dangerous overlap between people with access to guns and people in severe mental distress.

Last week, President Biden urged Congress to pass a federal red flag law — one of several proposals that he called “rational, common sense measures.” But he and other Democrats face resistance from Republicans who insist that the red flag process can be misused, depriving an innocent person of his or her right to own guns.

Red flag laws go only so far. The orders are handled in civil court and typically do not lead to criminal charges. And New York’s statute does not lay the groundwork for treatment of the behavior that prompts a judge’s order.

Still, adherents in Suffolk County call red flag orders vital.

“This is something that we can use in that gray area where we don’t have anything and we’re just walking away from a situation that we know is making the hair on the back of our neck stand up,” said Geraldine Hart, a former Suffolk County police commissioner who helped direct the law’s introduction there.

After the Buffalo slaughter, Gov. Kathy Hochul made it mandatory for the State Police to seek red flag orders when they believe someone poses a danger.

Her directive was prompted by the fact that the 18-year-old charged in the shooting had not been put through the red flag process even though he had written in a school assignment that he wanted someday to commit a murder-suicide. He was taken for a mental health evaluation, but he wrote later that he was seen for only 15 minutes and that he lied, saying the murder-suicide remark had been a joke.

“That is the reason I believe I am still able to purchase guns,” he wrote.

My colleagues’ examination of Suffolk County cases found that red flag orders led to the removal of more than 160 guns, including at least five military-style rifles. The youngest subject of such an order was 14, the oldest 88. All but two were male.

The heavier use of red flag orders in Suffolk County does not appear to have produced significant changes in gun death rates compared with those in the rest of the state. But Hart, the former police commissioner, said the county had seen several positive effects, including parents having to confront their children’s psychological problems.

At least 11 of the orders involved school threats, including two issued Thursday and Friday to 15-year-old boys, one of whom walked into a classroom and shouted “I’m gonna shoot up the school.” The second boy posted on Instagram that he hoped he got locked up so that he and the other boy could “BEAT THE CASE SO THEN BOTH US CAN BOOM THE SCHOOL.”

Weather

It’s a sunny day near the 80s, New York. At night, the evening is mostly clear, with temps dropping to the low 60s.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

Suspended today (Shavuot).

The latest Metro news

• Mental health in schools: American teenagers are reporting severe levels of anxiety and depression. But when Connecticut moved to expand mental health services in schools, it ran into fierce opposition in one town.

• Goodbye to the ‘Breaking News’ banners: CNN’s ubiquitous “Breaking News” banner is gone. The network’s new chairman is encouraging a more nuanced approach to coverage.

In case you missed it …

• Transforming a Rust Belt town: Since the 1970s, refugees escaping war and persecution have helped to stem the decline of Utica, N.Y., a town that lost industry and population.

• A murder charge: A Queens man was charged with murder after shooting a restaurant delivery man, Zhiwen Yan, in April after a dispute over duck sauce. Prosecutors said the slaying came after a monthslong campaign of harassment.

Arts & Culture

• “Broadway’s living room”: Feinstein’s/54 Below turns 10. On June 12, it will receive an honor at the Tony Awards for excellence in the theater.

• Postpartum, on view: Gothamist reported on “Ecologies of Care,” a new exhibit by the artist Ani Liu. The show, with pieces using A.I. and 3-D printing technology, draws on her own experience as a new parent.

Everyone’s a critic

“The Minutes” is a play that features actors playing members of a City Council. We asked a real New York City Council member — Gale Brewer, who represents the Upper West Side — to play drama critic after she saw the show, a Steppenwolf Theater production at Studio 54 that was nominated for a Tony Award for best new play.

Like The Times’s critic, Jesse Green, Brewer did not give away the dark history of what had happened in the town in the play. Unlike him, Brewer didn’t ask “what could be more tedious, onstage, or in life” than a City Council meeting with an agenda that’s not what it seems. Here’s her review, condensed for space from a conversation we had last week:

I don’t go to many plays, but I enjoyed it very much,

The first thing I noticed was a bottle of sanitizer on every desk, so I knew it was current.

I liked the stage set. The desks were like the City Council in New York City. They were old school — heavy wood, very distinguished, very old world.

There was a lot of discussion about the minutes. This is typical of elected bodies. But they adopted the minutes from two weeks ago, not the previous meeting. Mr. Peel, the new guy, asked where the minutes from the last meeting were. He never could get an answer. It was the old guard using the rules, which they controlled, to silence any dissent. Later on, we learn Mr. Peel (Noah Reid) is the hero, so it was a nice beginning to have him asking questions, which is what, as an elected official, we like. And it turned out he asked the right questions.

One of the other members, who was part of the old guard, brought up renovating a fountain in the town. He wanted it to be accessible to the disabled. He made a strong case. When the group voted, the only person who supported him was Mr. Peel, the new guy. That revealed all the underlying disagreements.

It was very clever how the play constructed these conversations to be more than they seemed on the surface. And there was lots of intrigue, and lots of things that were not what they appeared to be.

The mayor, who is also the playwright (Tracy Letts), was very plausible. He was quite old guard at one point, and then when there was a 4-to-4 tie, I thought, he has to break the tie in the right direction. He was excellent. The actress who played Ms. Matz (Sally Murphy) — she’s good for comedy as an actress, but I’m not sure she was typical of a Council member. She was supposed to write a resolution. She couldn’t remember what resolution she was supposed to write. I think a real Council member would remember that.

All the others in the cast seemed plausible as City Council members. But there’s no press person in the show. “What will the press say?” — which we worry about all the time, to be honest — never came up. I always speak my mind, but you do think, how is it going to sound in the press?

METROPOLITAN diary

Home to Canarsie

Dear Diary:

Growing up, I told everyone that I lived in Canarsie, along the L line.

That’s what I thought because that’s what all the subway signs that led toward home said when we went to and from Manhattan. (My mother did not correct me because of her own, similar confusion when she arrived in New York as a young immigrant.)

It wasn’t until my friend Ian challenged my geography in high school that I was finally corrected. My stop was Bedford Avenue. I lived in Williamsburg.

More than 20 years later, Ian still greets me with “Canarsie in the house!” and it makes me chuckle.

— Jennifer Ma

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.

Glad we could get together here. Good to be back after a little vacay last week. See you tomorrow. — J.B.

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.

Melissa Guerrero, Jeff Boda and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].

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