We’ve spared no expense in describing how Suffolk County, the largest suburban county in the nation, is not only a national leader on many levels, but how the county is a microcosm of the nation overall.
Suffolk residents are attuned to a myriad of issues, and the familiarity isn’t surface level. Agriculture, heavy industry, maritime economics, internationally recognized tourism locales, precarious environmental situations, world-renowned research capabilities, and housing are just a few issues Suffolk can speak to with in-depth experience, all while standing as an immediate bedroom-community of the nation’s largest city – and perhaps the most recognizable city in the world.
Criminal justice and the problems that accompany it are not to be excluded from that list, and Suffolk goes beyond its typical level of national leadership in that regard.
And it’s unmistakably because of District Attorney Ray Tierney (R).
The Suffolk D.A.’s office had been in Democratic hands for nearly the entirety of the Twenty-First Century. D.A. Tim Sini (D-Babylon) was elected in a landslide in 2017 in what was perhaps a harbinger of the seismic 2018 blue wave that would catapult progressive Democrats into Albany.
That, as it turned out, would be a recipe for disaster – especially in one of the largest prosecutorial offices in the nation.
Sini would not only get bad marks for being an ineffective prosecutor during his single, four-year term, but the figurative ghost of his predecessor Tom Spota (D-Mt. Sinai) would also haunt the office, as Spota and former SCPD Chief Jimmy Burke would glaringly push the FBI out of the Gilgo Beach investigation. Spota had served as D.A. from 2002 to 2017, while Sini would become SCPD Commissioner after Burke’s exit.
But Sini sat out on a mountain of evidence pertaining to Gilgo and could not get crimes from serious offenses to quality-of-life disruptions under control.
Sini was rightfully voted out in the 2021 red wave, delivering Suffolk now-D.A. Tierney, who promulgated suspect Rex Heuermann in the Gilgo case less than two years into his term.
Moreover, Tierney’s unopposed run for a second term is a testament to his ability to transcend partisan politics and truly make a difference, we find.
The Gilgo developments have been nothing short of earth-shattering, particularly as the avant-garde technology used to identify a suspect and rule out others makes Gilgo the first case in New York State history to be formed by this kind of evidence.
However, the bigger task at hand for any local prosecutor is to keep crime controlled in citizens’ everyday lives. While some prosecutors aim for the illusion of safety, Tierney has ensured comprehensive investigations into everything from narcotics to human trafficking to theft rings.
The data speaks for itself. Catalytic converter theft, the talk of the town a few years ago, is now virtually nonexistent. What started as a 1,200-plus-strong problem in 2023 is now down to around 150 as of last year. Shootings had almost doubled in the four years prior to Tierney’s ascension to office. Now, the county has seen a 34% decrease overall and a 91% decrease in black male shooting deaths. The numbers not seen since the 1950s display a monumental win for quality of life and suburban revitalization across Suffolk.
True to form, Suffolk’s status as a premier American suburban county boasts an astonishingly low violent crime rate. While the Bronx sees a rate 1,265 – per 100,000 – Suffolk sees just 91.8. Suffolk is not only the safest large county in the state, but one of the safest large counties in the entire country.
Tierney’s overhaul of the D.A.’s office has led to more prosecutions of animal abuse cases and environmental offenses. All while the County had poor ratings as far as the typical crimes go, Tierney and his team were able to transform the office, expand the bureaus, and slash the numbers across the books in just four years – all while prosecuting the laborious Gilgo Beach case.
But it’s not just about statistics and the archetypal forms of crime. Tierney has been a steadfast advocate for criminal justice reform, particularly as it pertains to the opioid epidemic and cashless bail reform. Tierney rightly asserts that Albany is too soft on criminals and essentially punishes the victims.
However, that doesn’t come from a place of pure partisan theatrics. Rather, it comes from a nuanced position that calls for the balance we as a country once understood implicitly and held as sacrosanct. The progressive experimentation with codes and statutes has put lives on the line, demoralized the innocent, and has given virtually every New Yorker just another reason to split for the South.
D.A. Tierney, while able to recognize a bad idea when he sees one, is also able to understand the premise. Bail reform, for instance, is a massive overcorrection, as Tierney has stated, but not one that didn’t come from a place of legitimacy.
That type of balanced, independent mantra is exactly what can get the job done in a much larger sense: staying tough on crime and following through on enforcement but parlaying intimate knowledge of the system from a psychosocial perspective to give everyone the reform they’ve been desperately craving.
Suffolk is privileged to have a district attorney in Ray Tierney, and thus, the county is ever more deserving of its high marks that make it a national leader in more ways than the obvious.
