CARMEL – It was two years ago when the Putnam County Emergency Response Team (ERT) summoned on numerous occasions for decades to armed suspects along with barricaded and emotionally disturbed individuals was disbanded because, according to Putnam County, the county Legislature never approved an intermunicipal agreement with police from Carmel and Kent.
County Attorney Compton Spain sent a memo to the late Sheriff Kevin McConville in December 2024 advising that his department should “immediately abandon and discontinue all involvement” with the team comprised at the time with 19 deputies and six officers from Carmel and Kent Police Departments.
The sheriff’s department formed its own team while the Carmel and Kent Police Departments followed suit.
The ERT is currently working to reconnect with the Putnam Sheriff’s Department Special Response Team. The initial step involves signing an intermunicipal agreement focused on training and mutual aid support.
The County Law Department requested two clarifications that included County Executive Kevin Byrne delegating his authority to the sheriff as well as each agency handling the funding of training for their own members.
Carmel Police Chief Anthony Hoffmann told members of the Carmel Town Board Thursday, “These are not changes to the agreement insomuch as clarifications to the current policy.”
The Carmel Town Board, acting as police commissioners, amended the resolution to enable the implementation of the updated agreement.
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