Sheriff Paul Arteta Launches Orange County Threat Advisory Committee to Prevent Violence

Sheriff Paul Arteta announced the Orange County Threat Advisory Committee, or OCTAC, at a press event in Goshen on Feb. 27, 2026, creating a county-level body to assess and prevent targeted violence. The sheriff’s Instagram post stated, “Sheriff Paul Arteta is pleased to formally announce the establishment of the Orange County Threat Advisory Committee, or ‘OCTAC.’”

OCTAC will be co-led by a lieutenant and a sergeant from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and includes representatives from Orange County Mental Health, Orange County Social Services, Orange County Probation, the County Executive’s Office, Orange‑Ulster BOCES, sheriff’s investigators assigned to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the Hudson Valley Crime Analysis Center. Thephoto-news reported that “other partner agencies and community organizations are being added during this initial outreach period.”

The committee’s stated mission on the sheriff’s website is explicit: “The Orange County Threat Assessment Committee is dedicated to partnering with our community to prevent acts of targeted violence.” Thephoto-news described OCTAC’s mandate in clinical terms: “OCTAC is tasked with assessing possible threats based on the understanding that offenders do not ‘snap,’ rather, they make a decision to act,” and that identifying overt behaviors offers an opportunity to intervene before an attack.

Training is a central pillar of OCTAC’s work. Thephoto-news says every committee member is trained in the National Threat Evaluation and Reporting Office’s Threat Evaluation and Reporting Course, or TERC, an “intensive three-day course that explores the history of targeted violence, the ways to identify indicative behaviors, ways to perform an inquiry into a subject, assessing potential enhancers or mitigators of violent behavior, and the management of the case to keep the subject off the pathway to violence.” OCTAC currently features one NTER-trained master instructor and “looks to certify more in the future,” and the sheriff’s office will hold monthly information sessions for community organizations and leaders across Orange County.

Officials tied OCTAC’s creation to state policy: Thephoto-news reported that Gov. Kathy Hochul’s May 2022 executive order, issued after the TOPS Friendly Market shooting in Buffalo, directed New York counties to create threat assessment teams and provided funding to support those efforts. The sheriff’s website provides public instructions for imminent threats, “If you have information on a suspected, planned, or openly voiced targeted act of violence that may occur, call 911 immediately”, and nonemergency contact via the sheriff’s patrol division at 845-291-7929.

Several operational details remain unannounced: the sheriff’s office has not released the names of the lieutenant and sergeant co-leads, has not disclosed specific funding amounts, and did not provide formal protocols for referrals, data sharing, or privacy safeguards at the Goshen event. The sheriff’s website hosts an OCTAC page and allows organizations to request on-site training through the OCTAC website; it also supports creating a website account to manage notifications and form progress.

OCTAC begins with defined partners, NTER-based training, and a monthly outreach schedule; county officials say the committee’s work will focus on assessing behaviors that precede targeted violence and on certifying more instructors to expand local capacity.