Lawrence Mulvey's retirement statement

Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey released the following statement Thursday announcing his plan to retire effective April 1, 2011:

"I am most appreciative and thankful to former County Executive Tom Suozzi and County Executive Ed Mangano for giving me the opportunity to work for two very dedicated public officials. Both made public safety a core component of their respective administrations.

In late September of 2010, I shared my decision to retire privately with the County Executive and key members of my staff. My announcement today enables the County Executive to publically consider his next appointment to the position.

I truly believe that Ed Mangano has the vision and ability to lead this county back to financial stability. Already in his 1st year, working together, we have civilianized and consolidated services to save the taxpayers more than $20 million. The 2011 police budget is balanced. Going forward, he needs to make very important decisions that will impact the police department well into the future, and he needs to make them with a Police Commissioner who will be in place to see those decisions through for 2 or 3 more years. My plans all along were to leave at the end of this year.

I approach retirement very much satisfied that I have achieved what I wanted to accomplish when I accepted the job in 2007. Improving morale was at the top of my list and clearly morale has been restored. Next on the list was improving officer safety and community safety by getting guns off the street. Through our gun buyback programs we have removed over 1,800 illegal handguns from our streets. In addition, through our aggressive enforcement by our police officers and detectives, we have removed more than 325 illegal handguns from criminals.

At the same time we have been able to upgrade our police officers duty weapon to a 40 cal. firearm. The integration of technology and the adoption of the Intelligence Led Policing Model have given our officers and detectives enhanced tools to do their job.

The NCPD was the first police agency in the Northeast to recognize the burgeoning heroin problem and consequently to address this problem the NCPD has the most comprehensive program, which includes aggressive enforcement, parental awareness and education. Our “Shed the Meds” program, to get often abused opiates out of the medicine cabinets, has been copied nationwide.

In addition, we created a “Youth Police Academy” to give youth that harbor negative views of the police a different perspective. We created the “R.E.A.C.H Program” to better serve our constituents, and the guardians of those constituents that have physical and mental impairments, that may put them at risk of wandering off and getting lost. Our Telly Award winning hate crime video, “Hate – Crossing the Line”, has been distributed to all public and private schools in Nassau County and is in demand from communities and schools across the country."