Question: The shooting on Tuesday and SWIFT 911

A reader asks:

Do you know if the city used the SWIFT 911 system to alert anyone? 

I see a lot of people complaining and yet the city has a system in place to alert people of dangers, lock downs etc.{B5B44EBF-97BE-4ECE-929A-53A91C90E17C}

Do we need an alert czar?  Are people over reacting?

25 Replies to “Question: The shooting on Tuesday and SWIFT 911”

  1. Tagney said at the city council meeting he decided not to give updates or make an alert. He makes the call on what to do in police situations and that’s that. He said he does it when appropriate or necessary.

    Any conspiracy posts that he fell asleep at the wheel are pretty silly. Police Department makes a lot of decisions and deal with a lot of sensitive situations that don’t require updates. The way they handled this situation is clearly successful by any measure if you’re a sane and normal person.

    If you are a political person with petitions for candidates or donating money to the other sides, etc., feigning outrage is commonplace.

  2. The success in this situation was clearly decided by the individual that was arrested. Had he chosen to not go peacefully and decided instead to go out “guns blazing” things would have been far different. If the “Public was never in danger” then why call in a SWAT team? 4:18 shooting to a 9:55 arrest is a “pretty quick resolution” on what planet? “We knew where he was, we set up a perimeter a distance away so as not to alarm him.” Then why are there pictures on the Herald of police officers searching the beach? Why have a very loud helicopter circling overhead for an hour? Was that to help the shooter (that you already located) remain calm???
    Ak-47 + already used handgun + trained marine + PTSD + “emotional issues” + no qualms using deadly force + a densely populated community starting their commute to school/work without a clue of the situation = A VERY DANGEROUS SITUATION FOR THE PUBLIC !!!!!!!!

    For Tagney or anyone to try to say otherwise is a JOKE!!!!!

  3. @ALERT CZAR: There are two issues I have with your response.
    One the successful resolution of the situation was by Nassau County PD not LBPD. So LBPD cannot take credit for it. All the credit goes to NCPD and is well deserved.

    Secondly, while I don’t see this as any type of grand conspiracy or partisan politics at work, I do think the City, the PD and BOE were all in fact asleep at the wheel here and did nothing to allay the fears of the citizenry during an incident that clearly was causing great concern for many residents.

    When it became obvious through various social media sites, people calling the PD and the questioning of officers and detectives that were at the scene that the public was concerned some type of alert should have been issued to let people know the situation was under control and that the suspect was contained at one location and not roaming the streets or otherwise “on the loose” and that as an abundance of caution that nearby schools were on what they are calling a “Modified Lockdown.” Something that short and simple, just a few sentences, is all that was needed. If they failed to see how concerned people were then clearly they were sleeping at the wheel. People have a tendency to let their fears get the best of them when they have no information to go on. As the chief of the police he needs to keep the peace, part of that is seeing that people are scared, concerned and worried and realize that their fears need to be addressed. The blame doesn’t fall with Tagney only the City Manager and School Board also share blame.

    Finally, if the PD or city didn’t feel they were asleep at the wheel why did they suddenly need to reactivate a LBPD Facebook page that hadn’t been used in over two years (last post was Aug. 2012) to send an alert out hours afterward that the situation had been completely resolved?

    Hopefully they all will use this as an example of how not to handle the situation if it ever happens again!

  4. also this all went down at 4:18 am the concern should not have been not how to keep kids on an (at the time) empty school. It should have been in keeping kids that had to go to school in their homes!!! Schools opened 3 hours after this shooting!!!!!!!

  5. According to Police commissioner Michael Tangney was paid $304,089 for the year ending 2014. That does not include pension contributions or health benefits. To put that into perspective the Police Commissioner of the City of New York, according to, made $205,180 for the year 2014. In the last 6 years Michael Tangney has been paid $1,211,917, besides pension and health care contributions….

    So the real question is – Is the city safer or less safe in 2014 than previous years? Do the taxpayers feel that the local police commissioner should be paid over $300,000 per year in a city of less than 35,000 people? and if so, do you think we can get someone qualified enough that Nassau County does not have to be called in as much as they always are called in to Long Beach to “help”?

    Have there been more shootings and more criminal activity than previous years? Has he made the city safer? Has he made the police force act more professionally?

  6. Certainly don’t like Tagney but part of that $300k is his retirement payout when he left civil service to become commissioner that he agreed to have spread over three years rather then a lump sum. It actually saved city money.

  7. Tangney left civil service ? You mean he is not accruing any more time for his pension, you’re dreaming. No way left civil service. I’d love to see the numbers you used to declare that WE saved money on this deal.

  8. Wake up Czar! In today’s connected society with social media and cell phones your kidding me if you think this was handled properly. PR and Social Media 101 says either you control the conversation or all you will do is play catch up. And that’s exactly what they’re doing now. Instead of having a real action plan for situations like this we have the Comish “playing it by ear” and that’s fine for 20 years ago but not for today’s always connected society.

  9. It does seem that any time the sh$# gets real, the LBPD calls in the Nassau PD to resolve the issue. It’s total negligence on the part of City Council to let this charade continue. At this juncture, and with the way the shootings, drug incidents, etc are on the rise is Long Beach that we don’t have a serious talk about doing away with the LBPD and coming under NCPD. Seriously, we have numerous police officers that earn over $250,000 a year and the overall PD costs is something like 25% of our operating budget. For what? Can someone please point out the value added in keeping it this way?

  10. If Nassau PD takes over I’m selling my house to the first decent offer And moving. Nassau police Department is far too big of a department with far too little supervision. There are discipline problems with the Nassau Officers constantly in the paper, a shuttered crime lab, and deparent leadership resigning or getting arrested for corruption. and besides Nassau won’t do it for free. We’ll pay more to Nassau while our officers are handling situations in Inwood, Island Park and Oceanside.

  11. So here’s an opportunity to bash the cops? They made a decision on the Swift 911 notification, and you all, with so little information disagree with their decision. So now bash their earnings?

    Nassau handles all major investigations and events. That has been the deal since 1910 and that’s why we pay a Police Headquarters Tax to Nassau.

    As far as Tagney’s sick leave buyout spread over three years, Mein, as usual, is correct. The City made a deal to spread Tagney’s payout over three years, rather than suffer the media’s ignorant publicity of a huge retirement windfall. It also saves the City money by lowering their one year obligation. And yes, Tagney’s and every officer’s “windfall” sickleave buyout saves the City money by deferring the compensation. Unfortunately, their mismanagement fails to set aside money for this obligation and it becomes a huge liability on payday.

  12. The CAVE negative Nancys wanted to attack city hall and when they realized that it wasnt city halls fault but the police departments decision, they figured they just attack salaries again

  13. For fact checking. Here is a link to an article about Tagney’s contract with a link to the contract. His salary is supposed to be $185k per year and his sick time payout was supposed to be split over three years 2012/2013/2014.



  14. Just got a robocall from the School District informing me of “Police Activity” at National Blvd. and the Bay”.

    They got someone pulled over and is giving them a ticket?

  15. Just wait until iStar opens. 50 section8 apartments from day one, and more once the landlord can’t fill the other 470 units at market prices. Just imagine what’s going to go down in the iStar parking lot – drug dealing, loitering, etc. Rockaways, here we come.

  16. I guess they have in fact named an “Alert Czar” as there was a robo call from school saying all OK and PD put it out on Facebook. So hopefully they learned something and will keep it up.


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