The boy made his threat on a school bus.
In late March, a 16-year-old in Suffolk County, New York, 60 miles east of New York City, told fellow students that he wanted to shoot them in the head, according to court records. He told police he wanted to injure himself with a rifle in his house.
What followed was more common in Suffolk County than any other county in the state: a judge issued a “red flag” order that would allow authorities to take weapons from home. Police have requested that the boy’s access to a weapon be revoked. The judge acts after finding that he is a danger. Two rifles were taken. The judge later wrote that the boy “admitted that the lack of rifles in his home was beneficial”.
After horrific mass shootings at a supermarket in Buffalo, a school in Texas and a hospital in Oklahoma, many politicians are embarking on ways to keep guns away from people in crisis.
On Thursday, President Biden called on Congress to pass a federal red flag law, although such measures have met with strong opposition from Republicans, who say the red flag process could be abusive to take away an innocent person’s fundamental right to own weapon. Negotiations are also under way in Washington to offer incentives for more countries to pass red flag laws – New York is one of 19 that have one, along with the District of Columbia.
A study by The New York Times of more than 100 red flag cases filed in Suffolk County since the law went into effect in August 2019 shows how New York law has dispelled dozens of dangerous situations in the growth of suburbs and beach towns. Long Island, according to current and former employees.
The red flag law is hardly a panacea. It does not require treatment for the anxious behavior that led to the order, and its effect on firearms death statistics is difficult to discern. But those who have implemented it say it is a key tool.
“This is something we can use in that gray area where we have nothing and we are just moving away from a situation that we know is causing the hair on our backs to stand up,” said Geraldine Hart, a former district police commissioner who helped guide the introduction of the law.
Initiated by police officers, school staff and panicked family members, the Suffolk County cases sounded like a drumbeat of domestic chaos and potential disaster. They removed more than 160 cannons, including at least five military-style rifles. They involve 22 people under the age of 25, including 11 minors.
The youngest subject on the red flag is 14; the oldest was 88. All but two were men.
State Court spokesman Lucian Chalfen said red flag records were required by law to be sealed once they expired. But Suffolk’s cases, many of which involve expired orders, have nevertheless been found in a commercial legal database and, in some cases, in open court records.
The files are full of people threatening to shoot in courthouses or schools, men loaded with weapons and ammunition, people behaving chaotically in a gun shop or military base, or shooting randomly in a neighbor’s yard. People desperate for the loss of a job or a girlfriend, the deteriorating health of a husband, the death of a parent. People who write to friends and loved ones, “Goodbye forever,” or “I have a gun to my bed, brother,” or publish “When I kill everyone, they know it’s my father’s fault.”
The cases point to a key fact of American life: the dangerous overlap between the group of people with access to weapons and the group of people in severe mental suffering. Every eight days, Suffolk County Judges order authorities to take firearms and ban a person from obtaining a firearm. Orders heard in a civil court do not usually lead to criminal charges.
Officially known as extreme risk protection orders, red flags are used sparingly in much of New York. About 620 “final” orders – valid for up to a year – have been imposed across the state.
Judges in Suffolk County, which has a population of about 1.5 million, have issued at least 117 final orders, the highest percentage of each of the most populous counties. (The nation’s leading issuer of red flag orders is Florida, where judges have signed more than 8,000 under a 2018 law passed after the Parkland High School shooting.)
Ms Hart said Suffolk was “leaning forward” in educating police and school staff about the law and discussing it at community meetings. “It’s one thing to pass a law and just announce it,” she said, “but it’s another to give training, outreach and support.”
Dennis M. Cohen, Suffolk County Attorney, added: “From a very early age, we simply decided as politicians to take an aggressive approach.”
This attitude can spread. After the massacre of Buffalo, Governor Katie Hochul ordered state police to look for red flag orders when they thought someone was in danger.
Her directive was prompted by the fact that 18-year-old Peyton C. Hendron, accused of the shooting, was not subjected to a red flag procedure when he wrote in a school assignment that he wanted to commit suicide one day. Mr Hendron was taken for a mental health assessment, but he wrote that he had only been seen for 15 minutes and that he had lied that the remark was a joke. “That’s why I believe I can still buy weapons,” he wrote.
The process of red flag orders is easy: a district judge can issue an interim order and, after hearing a final order, based on evidence that someone can cause serious harm. Orders can be renewed.
Research on the effectiveness of laws is mixed. A study in Connecticut found that one suicide was prevented every 10 to 20 seizures of weapons. One in San Diego County, California, found that the red flag did not significantly reduce gun violence.
In Suffolk County, heavier use of red flag orders does not appear to have led to significant changes in gun deaths from the rest of the state. But Ms. Hart, a former police commissioner, said the county has seen several positive effects, including forcing parents to confront their children’s psychological problems.
Laura Sarowitz, a lawyer in the district attorney’s office, said the orders also helped families with members who wanted to injure themselves by making it difficult to obtain a weapon. “It really creates additional barriers,” she said.
Suffolk County Deputy Sheriffs usually carry out orders and remove weapons, entering situations they know little about.
“This can be a very high risk,” said Chief Deputy Sheriff Christopher Brockmeier. “We try to do our due diligence and check the respondents as much as we can.”
Some attorneys say the county has gone too far. Peter H. Thielem, whose company has represented clients in red flag cases, said some were based solely on a statement written or sent to a friend.
“What is it like for a student who has never committed a crime to have the police break down his door and confiscate his gun?” Mr. Thielem asked. “What is it like to have to be examined by psychiatrists and psychologists to prove that you are not in danger to yourself or others?”
In Suffolk, orders are issued for a wide variety of reasons.
There are people accused of threatening a friend, roommate or aunt; people who said they were planning a “cop suicide” and those who had been misled: a man who shouted that he was the messiah and that he had to cut his grandmother off the side of his body; another with a rifle under his bed who said that UFOs, aliens and the government wanted to shoot him with lasers.
At least 11 red flag orders included school threats, including a couple issued Thursday and Friday to two 15-year-olds, one of whom entered the classroom and shouted “I’m going to shoot the school.” The other boy posted on Instagram that he hoped he would be locked up so that he and the other boy could “BREAK THROUGH THE CASE SO THAT WE CAN BOTH OF THE SCHOOL.”
There are people who did not own weapons but had a red flag so as not to buy them, and people whose entire arsenals were confiscated. A man who was already under a red flag order was hit by a second because he made a friend buy him a gun. And sometimes civil lawsuits and the resulting searches lead to criminal charges for illegal weapons or drugs.
Officers handing out a red flag order to Robert Ludwig found drugs that led to criminal charges against him. Credit … Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office
After a judge issued a suicide warrant against Robert Ludwig, 26, this year, deputy sheriffs said they found three illegal “ghost weapons” assembled from kits, 4,000 rounds and a pharmacopoeia that includes fentanyl, amphetamine, LSD and Xanax. He was charged with possession of a weapon and drugs and pleaded not guilty, said his lawyer, Michael J. Brown.
Mr Brown said there were mitigating circumstances in Mr Ludwig’s case and “there is no indication that he would use any weapon against himself or anyone else”.
So far, the most common reason for an order has been to stop suicide.
In January 2022, for example, a 37-year-old wrote on Facebook that he wanted to shoot himself and posted a photo of a weapon in Dick’s sporting goods in Patchogue. Officers told police he had just bought a rifle and ammunition. They found the man in his car a few miles away with the pistol in the back seat.
Although Suffolk County judges provide most requests for orders, there are many exceptions.
Last August, a man sent a message to a friend that he had tried to shoot himself, but the gun was stuck, adding, “I don’t want to be here anymore.” At a final hearing, both men testified that the texts were jokes, and the judge found that the police had not provided clear and convincing evidence that the man was a danger.
Robert M. Schechter, his lawyer, said his client was doing well and …
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