Fresh off the Labor Day weekend, Suffolk County’s leaders in local law enforcement announced an onslaught of promotions for many of its veteran police officers on Tuesday, September 2nd.
“Some of the people standing before me are part of the new leadership team. They’ve been here for years,” said Suffolk County Executive Romaine.
“They’ve all served in various capacities. They’ve long-risen through the ranks… Suffice it to say, we have extremely talented, experienced and knowledgeable people and we try to reward those by promoting from within.”
Most notably, seasoned commander William Doherty saw a position upgrade in the form of chief of the entire police department after 30-plus years of consummate serving and protecting.
Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina—who revealed he and Doherty actually started their careers together in the early 1990s New York Police Department—quipped that if you told the two of them back then where they would be all these years later, they would not believe it.
“I have no doubt [Doherty] is the perfect person to lead the men and women of this department,” he said.
As Doherty moves up a prong, Sean Beran will assume his former role as chief of detectives. Dave Regina becomes chief of patrol. “He [Beran] leads with integrity and true results,” said Catalina.
Mike Kelly also becomes the first black officer to run the Third Precinct as its new inspector.
With this reshape, the promoted officers and their overseers vow to pull out every stop while reining in traffic control, eradicating the most horrific crimes imaginable, and cracking down on every other offense in between.
“The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office is greatly looking forward to working with each and every one of you, and we support you in everything you do,” said Suffolk County Sheriff Errol D. Toulon, Jr. “We’re looking forward to not only keeping our community safe, but our law enforcement community safe.”
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney called the day’s promotions well-deserved, and commended his colleagues in county leadership for having a keen eye for team-building.
“I think Ed is a fantastic leader, and one of the things Ed does best is he knows what he’s good at and he knows when he needs help with. When it comes to public safety, he’s appointed Kevin, and Kevin is doing a fantastic job,” said Tierney.
“Kevin has been given the opportunity to run the department as he sees fit, and we see the results of that. I’m going to take a page out of their book… and we’ll continue to work together to do great things.”