Queens NY hospital becomes first to arm security officers
Queens NY July 10 2018 A Queens hospital just became the first in the city to get armed guards — part of a sweeping move by the behemoth Northwell Health system to staff all of its sites with current and former cops wielding guns.
Last year’s fatal shooting of a doctor at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center put the program on the fast track, said former NYPD Detective Scott Strauss, Northwell’s chief of security.
“Why not do it now? Why wait until tragedy strikes?’’ Strauss told The Post.
Northwell — which used to be called the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System — has 23 hospitals, including six in the city.
It put its first armed security force at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset on March 6, then added guards with guns at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, Queens, last month, company officials said.
The armed guards are all current or former cops and carry the same 9 mm handguns, holsters and bullets as NYPD officers, he said.
Northwell also recently formed a “partnership” with the NYPD to hire regular department cops by the hour at some sites. It is already using the cops at Lenox Health Greenwich Village on weekends.
A former city paramedic hailed the move.
“I have seen a lot of s–t go down, especially in New York City, where angry families, gang members, so-called relatives have shown up in the ER and want to fight,’’ he said.
At Lenox, Strauss said, “Having a police officer has prevented the escalation of small incidents just by [their] mere presence.”
Gang violence also played into Northwell’s decision.
At Southside Hospital in Bayshore, LI, “One of the gang members had been stabbed or shot, and the victim’s brother followed the ambulance to the hospital,’’ recalled Northwell rep Terence Lynam.
“He got upset that they wouldn’t let him into the ER, so he went outside and fired bullets into the air.’’
Strauss said another incident involved a stabbing victim at Phelps Hospital in Sleepy Hollow in Westchester County.
“A friend came in to give support,’’ and officers learned he had an active warrant against him, Strauss said. While arresting him, they found a handgun on him.
Strauss said staffers and patients are overwhelmingly in favor of the armed guards and that Northwell plans to put them in all of its hospitals in the coming months.
But other local hospitals are reluctant to jump on the bandwagon.
New York City Health and Hospitals, formerly known as HHC, which runs the city’s facilities, has been against arming its guards — which it considers “friendly greeters’’ and “client navigators,’’ a security-union rep said.
Its guards only carry batons.
“As a health care facility, we choose to minimize the risk of harm to our patients, consistent with our mission,’’ spokesman Bob de Luna told The Post. “Having guns in a hospital increases the risk of human harm.”
The former city paramedic called this lunacy.
Referring to the Bronx-Lebanon shooting, he said, “If it happened in Bellevue, hospital [staff] would be helpless. All they could do is hide like everyone else.
“The patients are sitting ducks.’’
Howard Stewart, 28, of Queens, who was visiting a friend at LIJ on Monday agreed.
“The more security, the better,’’ he said.
But Christina Grant, 26, who was at the hospital, too, said the idea makes her uneasy.
“You really gotta walk past armed guards to go see the doctor?” she said. “I already feel safe the way they are now.”
NY Post
