Q&A with new Amityville Police Chief Frank Caramanica Jr.

The Amityville Village Police Department has a new leader at its helm, and it’s someone who has spent his life around law enforcement.

Frank Caramanica Jr., who has been with the department since joining as an officer in 2009, was promoted to sergeant in 2018 and to lieutenant in 2022. Caramanica’s father and two brothers were on the federal side of law enforcement, while his uncles served in the NYPD.

His father, Frank Sr., was a federal agent for nearly 30 years who helped with the recovery after 9/11. The proud dad said he used to wear an ankle holster to work but didn’t realize his young son had noticed — until one day he watched as Frank Jr. put his toy gun into his sock. “It was the cutest thing,” he said.

Caramanica, 39, who lives in Wantagh with his wife and two daughters, said his dad was his role model and at first he wanted to join the federal side of law enforcement.

After graduating from Manhattan College with a degree in accounting, Caramanica worked for the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigations team. Living in Amityville at the time, he was asked to join the village’s force. He began taking on an acting chief role early this summer after Chief Bryan Burton announced his retirement, and Caramanica was officially sworn in to the position in September.

Amityville Mayor Mike O’Neill said he is “thrilled” to have Caramanica in the top seat of the department, which currently has 26 officers.

“He is going to do very well,” he said. “He is thoughtful and very level-headed and he’s responsive.”

Newsday spoke with Caramanica about his new role. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Why did you decide to change directions and go from the federal to the local side of law enforcement?

I wanted the bigger aspect of dealing with the community. On the federal side, sometimes you’re not really interacting with the community as much. Being a local police officer, you’re dealing with the public every day. That’s something that drew me to the local side.

You have been lauded by the village for helping get the department accreditation by the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services in 2024, an accomplishment only about 30% of the state’s law enforcement agencies currently possess. Talk about that process and its significance.

In 2020, I was pulled off the road to help out the chief to revamp our policies and procedures. It was a lengthy process and it took myself and Chief Burton about one to two years to meet the expectations for accreditation.

The state doesn’t make it mandatory, it’s a volunteer program, so it just shows the public … that we’re exceeding best practices in every part of law enforcement, from training to operations and even community engagement, and it just holds us accountable.

Our department as a whole has been trying to get accredited pretty much since I’ve been here, so I would say that was a big accomplishment of mine in my career.

What are some of your goals as chief?

To get us truly at full staffing [28 officers]; at levels that we were at when I got here. To maintain our accreditation. Maintaining strong community relationships.

Also modernizing the department and investing in some technology that improves our efficiency, transparency and also safety. We’re looking to get a new records management system. We still do a lot of paper reports in our day-to-day.

I’d like to add aspects of officer wellness, too. We’re looking into apps they can have, whether it’s physical fitness or any kind of mental health aspects of the job that they need help with.

The village has undergone significant growth in its downtown in recent years with new apartment buildings and businesses. Are you noticing certain areas that you’re getting more calls to, or certain types of complaints you’re responding to more now?

I really don’t have the analytical data on it right now. . . . This is part of modernization I want to do. With a new records management system, we’ll have the ability to break it down within a few seconds . . . we can have pie charts with locations and be able to see, ‘Oh OK, this is a hotspot area we need to focus on.’

What is your vision of the police chief’s role?

It’s an extreme honor to be the chief of police. Just being that professional figurehead and voice of the community. I just want to show that ‘He’s in charge of the biggest department in the village and he’s got a good head on his shoulders and he’s leading in the right way.’ Sometimes you’ve got to be that middleman, too, with what the board and the mayor wants and the needs of our department.