Sheriff: Hiring more deputies needed due to surge in calls

Middlesex County Sheriff David Bushey requested funding from the Middlesex County Board of Supervisors (MCBS) to hire two additional deputies to the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) staff to counter the workload caused by Bethpage and Grey’s Point campgrounds during their camping seasons.

At a budget work session on Monday, March 25, with MCBS, Sheriff Bushey said that during the months the campgrounds are open (April through the Urbanna Oyster Festival in November) dispatcher emergency calls double and are resulting in times when there are no deputies on the roads to respond to other emergencies.

“When we are dealing with redneck fights at campgrounds, we do not always have enough deputies to cover the rest of the county,” he said.

The sheriff explained campground security is made up of two off-duty Middlesex County deputies hired by the two campgrounds so each has one deputy during “select weekends” from 8 p.m. to midnight.

He noted that the deputies are off-duty but when they have a problem that requires on-duty deputies to assist there are often no deputies left to cover the rest of the county and this happens often, he said.

Sheriff Bushey also said the campgrounds have tried to hire their own private security people but “that did not work because they hired inexperienced young kids who ended up getting assaulted.”

“The two campgrounds continue to grow,” said the sheriff. “They added 250 new sites at each campground last year and now we are talking about putting a campground in the Jamaica District.”

The sheriff is requesting two additional deputies and paying them $52,000 a year, plus $28,000 each for required training. The sheriff is also asking for funds to lease four new police cruisers and for one new dispatcher.