Sheriff Todd Hood is a 30-year law enforcement veteran, lifelong upstate New Yorker, and one of the most respected voices in the state on public safety and the men and women who deliver it.
A native of the City of Oneida and lifelong Madison County resident, Sheriff Hood attended Springfield College in Massachusetts, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Sociology and played Division II football. He began his career as a Madison County Corrections Officer, graduated from the Mohawk Valley Police Academy in 1991, and went on to serve with the New York State Parks Police and patrol the Village of Clinton and Town of Kirkland before joining the Syracuse Police Department in 1993.
Over 22 years with Syracuse PD, Sheriff Hood served as a Detective with the Gang Task Force, S.W.A.T. Supervisor and Team Leader, and Firearms Instructor, and was deputized a member of the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force. After retiring, he joined the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office as an investigator before being elected Madison County Sheriff in January 2018. As Sheriff, he commands a workforce of more than 160 deputies, corrections officers, and civil personnel, and oversees a multi-million-dollar public safety operation.
Sheriff Hood currently serves as Vice President of the New York State Sheriffs’ Association, representing county sheriffs in legislative and policy discussions in Albany, and as Chairman of the National Sheriffs’ Association School Safety Committee, providing leadership on school safety policy, threat assessment, and violence prevention strategies across the country. He lives in Madison County with his wife Kelly and their three children, Matthew, Joshua, and Anna. As Lieutenant Governor, he will bring upstate values, frontline experience, and an unshakable commitment to law and order to a state government that has spent too many years working against both.