Surrounded by admirers, supporters and colleagues in the ceremonial room of the Ulster County courthouse, Ulster County sheriff Juan Figueroa raised his right hand to swear in for a second term as the county’s maximum cop.
Sitting among the legislators and party representatives, congressmember Pat Ryan had come to witness the occasion, as had state senator Michelle Hinchey. The sheriff solemnly swore to uphold the U.S. and New York State constitutions.
The tenor had changed from four years ago, when Figueroa toppled sheriff Paul Van Blarcum. Van Blarcum, who had held the post since 2007, was drawing scrutiny for advocating a boycott of the NFL via the sheriff’s department official Facebook page. Van Blarcum had become incensed by the sight of athletes kneeling to draw attention to the numerous black men shot and killed by police officers across the country that year.
Figueroa won decisively with 42,445 votes to Van Blarcum’s 36,078. Running unopposed in the 2022 election, Figueroa received 52,333 votes. More than just representing a new paradigm of law enforcement, Figueroa is now a political force to be reckoned with.
Swearing-in ceremonies are something like political weddings between power and ambition, attended by religious representatives and consecrated by the will of the people. The sheriff’s occasion was no different, only there were a lot more buzz cuts and shaved heads in the room. With police chiefs from surrounding municipalities looking on, the law-and-order contingent was represented heavily, and the press box had been filled with sheriff’s deputies.
A rabbi blessed the proceedings, calling attention to passages in the book of Deuteronomy concerned with justice, After America the Beautiful had been performed on a flute, a color guard marched out with rifles and flag, calling out minute instructions, which foot, when to turn, when to present. An Onteora high honor-roll student, Eleanor Martello, led the pledge of allegiance.
This all took place under the painted gazes of John Jay and Alton Parker, chief justices who had been dead since 1829 and 1926 respectively. If anything, the judges of the old school added to the occasion. But that’s why paintings hang it courtrooms along with gold-colored seals, why justices wear black robes, and why tall flags are set on poles adorned with eagles in the fashion of the Roman Empire. These psychological props of pomp and circumstance allow human beings to identify with ideas larger and more permanent than themselves. They are tradition.
In the case of Figueroa, who grew up of Puerto Rican ancestry in the Bronx, the optics of his office resonate with the minority populations in Ulster County, who like everywhere else in America find themselves interacting with officers of the law at rates out of proportion with their numbers, and their representation within the police force itself.
“We are so lucky to have a sheriff like Juan Figueroa here in Ulster County, who is willing to be the people’s sheriff,” said Tyrone Wilson, county commissioner of human rights. Wilson described the energy Figueroa has dedicated to diversifying the sheriff’s department and the observable results of that effort.
“Here today, we’re giving so much support to our law enforcement,” said Wilson. “I’ve been here 18 years, and I’ve never seen it. All these officers, we have relationships with, we talk to them. You know, we’re having conversations, they’re coming to us.” Wilson shared an experience. Figueroa called him on the telephone asking him to come down to speak with some new recruits.
“And I was shocked,” said Wilson, “because that’s not something we usually would do, you know. So I get down there and I meet a recruit, and my job, what Juan wanted me to do, was tell this recruit how important it is he can stand there right now and walk into this sheriff’s department and to put a badge on your chest. This is a recruit of color. To describe to this recruit all the blood, sweat and tears prior to this recruit that people have laid into this type of work. So the recruit has a responsibility to understand, hey, you’re not just in it for you.”
Figueroa’s influence on the sheriff’s department also drew praise from Immigration activist and SUNY professor Elana Michelson. She drew a sharp contrast with the old regime, which had at one time enforced a policy to run background checks on visitors to the department of social services. “Even in Juan’s Ulster County,” said Michelson, “it is not easy if you’re a person who is undocumented to walk into a large stately courthouse and into a room full of people with all kinds of fancy, intimidating uniforms on.”
Michelson told about a pickup truck full of undocumented immigrants — the kind of day laborers who stand on Broadway in Kingston hoping for work – which had broken down on Route 209 when the sheriff’s department pulled up.
“Now think about it,” said Michelson, “What might have happened to those folks when [Van Blarcum] was the sheriff? You know what happened to those folks with Juan’s sheriff department standing by? Well, that pickup truck wasn’t going anyplace, anytime soon. So the sheriff’s department drove them to work.”
Throughout the 45-minute ceremony, not a politician in the room was invited to speak at the podium. Figueroa was sworn in by a retired master sergeant whom the sheriff had served with in his Marine days.
When the sheriff spoke, his gravelly voice was more mellow than it had been during the campaign season, He wore a black uniform, and his bald head went without a trooper hat.
“Last time I was here when I was sworn in 2018,” said Figueroa, “I had a pair of trousers that I had to put safety pins on, a shirt that didn’t fit, and I didn’t even have a dress uniform. And I tell you this because I never knew what was on the horizon and what would happen over the next four years.”
The speakers at his swearing-in were in agreement. Figueroa’s election four years ago marked a sea change to a more compassionate, community-responsive police force dedicated in part to facing the opiate crisis head-on and using sensitivity to cope with the results of the underlying problems which created it — treating its victims not just as criminals to be arrested but as human beings deserving of redemption.
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