Next Suffolk chief must stop the lying and deceit

The Suffolk County Police Department, deservedly embattled, needs a commissioner who can set the organization on a new path.

That’s a tall order.

On Monday, Newsday reported on the case of Christopher Cruz, who is accused of stealing a Jeep Grand Cherokee in Coram in March. According to a report written by one of the officers who apprehended him, Cruz "accelerated and rammed into the front of my police vehicle to evade police contact."

But surveillance video from the station shows the collision occurring the other way around, with the officer hitting the Jeep. Experts who have reviewed it say they see evidence that the officer filed a false report. When officers caught up with and apprehended Cruz, their body cameras captured them kicking him.

Cruz was initially charged with second-degree assault, resisting arrest, car theft and two counts of criminal mischief for damaging the police car at the gas station and another later in the encounter. But District Attorney Tim Sini had to drop the assault and resisting arrest charges, and one of the mischief ones. In March the department suspended two officers for committing the apparent beating and placed three more, and a supervisor, on modified duty for allegedly failing to intervene.

The Suffolk County Police Department’s culture was on full display when former chief James Burke beat an addict who had broken into and robbed Burke’s car. Numerous cops lied for Burke, and former district attorney Thomas Spota and his chief deputy, Christopher McPartland, have been convicted for their part in the coverup.

In the Burke case, not one cop told the truth prior to the federal investigation that exposed the massive deception. The public is still largely in the dark about the identity of the officers who lied, and their punishments.

Each fresh incident of abuse and lying shows little has changed.

The next commissioner will be the fourth in the job in five years. All the previous three arrived promising change but left a department rife with rot. The last, Geraldine Hart, came aboard in 2018 after decades with the FBI, but recently escaped to gentler climes: as head of security for Hofstra University.

County Executive Steve Bellone says that while the search is nationwide, the challenges of running a huge department in this region means a leader from the metropolitan area may better understand the landscape, in a way outsiders don’t. This is a department largely controlled by the PBA and one where cops seem to instinctively lie rather than impugning other officers.

With Bellone two years from a term-limited exit, whoever he hires may be on short time. The steps a reformer needs to take will likely bring the new commissioner resentment and obstruction.

Wherever the next commissioner comes from, he or she must excise the rot.