U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi attends opening of Nassau County police training village

The alliance between Nassau County and the Trump administration was front and center Sunday at the unveiling of the new Nassau Police Training Village in Uniondale.

County Executive Bruce Blakeman and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi beamed as they cut the ceremonial ribbon for the village, a collection of faux buildings — including a school and a house of worship — meant to train officers in a more realistic setting.

"We’ve got a president that stands with the men and women of law enforcement," Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said of President Donald Trump to applause. "We got our attorney general, we got our county executive, everybody in Nassau County stands with the men and women in law enforcement."

Blakeman, a Republican, introduced Bondi as someone with "the courage of a Bengal tiger and the heart of a lion."

"This facility behind us today will save the lives of police officers," Bondi said. "There’s no secret that recruitment and retention are tough now for law enforcement officers. It’s a challenge we face, because of anti-police rhetoric — no more under Donald Trump, by the way. The attacks on our police officers, we will not stand for any longer."

Nassau Legis. Seth Koslow (D-Merrick), who is running against Blakeman for county executive in the November election, attended the ceremony, which he said seemed far too much like a "rally for Trump and for what Blakeman wants to do, or has done in the county, unrelated to the police department."

Bondi’s appearance was a "distraction," Koslow said.

"It takes away from the fact that we’re celebrating a fantastic program and village we have for our police department," Koslow said. "Instead we talked about what’s going on in Washington, D.C., and what has happened in Nassau County over the past three years."

Blakeman championed several of his accomplishments unrelated to the police, including his executive order banning transgender women and girls from playing on girls' and women's sports teams at county facilities.

Ryder led a tour of the facilities after the speeches. A 2023 Newsday story about plans for the training center put its estimated cost at $11.7 million. He said several other law enforcement agencies have trained at the village, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations. "We open up our door for everybody," he said.

Chris Boyle, a spokesman for Blakeman, did not answer questions Sunday about any possible cost adjustments in the past two years or when the facility opened for training.

On a model Long Island Rail Road car, two people acted out a hostage scene. After officers' calls for the man to put down his gun went unheeded, they threw a flash bang into the car and tackled the man.

The village also includes a split-level home, a courtroom, a police station, a bar/restaurant, a gas station and more, Ryder said in an interview.

"That's downtown Nassau County," he said. "That's downtown America."

By Joshua Needelman

joshua.needelman@newsday.com

Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.