Bellone: First Black woman promoted to sergeant in Suffolk's history

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone announced Friday the police department has promoted the first Black woman to the rank of sergeant — a day after Newsday reported Long Island’s police forces remain overwhelmingly white despite decades of federal oversight meant to diversify its ranks.

Apryl Hargrove, a 20-year U.S. Army veteran, is one of 25 new Suffolk County Police Department sergeants who passed the sergeant's written test and completed four weeks of state-mandated training Friday, according to a news release from Bellone’s office. Twenty of the 25 newly-minted sergeants are white males. The rest of the class is composed of two Hispanic men, a white woman and an officer who identifies as multi-racial, the release said.

"We have been working incredibly hard to help ensure diversity within the ranks of the SCPD, and today we reach another major milestone with the promotion of the first black female sergeant in department history," Bellone said in a statement. "Our goal is now to ensure that is the norm, as we work to promote and recruit additional officers in the future."

Bellone did not comment on why it had taken the department 61 years to promote a Black woman to what is an entry-level supervisory position. The police department’s Deputy Police Commissioner Risco Mention-Lewis, the first Black woman in that role, was appointed by Bellone to the civilian post in 2012.

Newsday reported Thursday that Black and Hispanic applicants are less likely to be hired by both the Nassau and Suffolk police departments, which rejected candidates of color at rates that exceeded federal standards used to uncover evidence of discrimination.

Suffolk County hired just 16 Black police officers — out of a pool of 1,419 Black applicants — in the four years following the administration of its 2015 written police test. Of a pool of 3,564 Hispanic applicants, 45 were hired as police officers from that same test. As of March this year, Suffolk employed 61 Black officers while Nassau had 103 despite the Department of Justice monitoring the hiring practices of both departments under federal consent decrees for the last four decades. Each department has 2,400 sworn officers.

The sergeants promoted Friday were among 190 officers who passed the written test administered by Suffolk's Civil Service Commission. The last sergeant's test was given in June 2019 and previously produced a class of sergeants that included 17 white men, two white women and one Hispanic woman.

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.