Goshen officer wins Top Cop award again for DWI enforcement

A Goshen patrol officer again emerged as one of Orange County’s top impaired-driving enforcers, a result that puts traffic safety, not ceremony, at the center of the story. Officer Cody Hunt earned first place in the village division of the 2025 Top Cop awards at the Forty-first Annual Mid-Hudson STOP-DWI enforcement conference, a repeat win that highlighted his work across village roads where enforcement can mean the difference between a routine stop and a serious crash.

Hunt led all villages in Orange County in DWI enforcement during calendar year 2025, according to the recognition announced on April 15. The honor was reported the next day and marked the second straight year he received the distinction. Hunt serves as the Village of Goshen Police Department’s traffic safety officer, a post focused on protecting drivers and pedestrians in a village that sits at the intersection of local streets, school traffic and commuter routes.

The award carries added weight because it comes through the STOP-DWI system, which operates in every county in New York and is designed to reduce alcohol- and drug-related traffic crashes. Orange County’s STOP-DWI and Traffic Safety Program says its mission is to further traffic safety through coordinated enforcement, prosecution, probation, rehabilitation, public information and school and community education efforts. In that framework, Hunt’s enforcement totals are more than an internal metric. They are one sign of how aggressively a department is confronting impaired driving before it turns into injury or death.

Village Police Chief Ryan Rich praised Hunt’s dedication and said the department believes his work has made the community safer. That message fits the department’s own mission, which says it exists to serve the village’s law-enforcement needs and protect residents’ freedom and safety. In Goshen, the recognition also reinforces a broader public-safety message: traffic enforcement is part of the daily work of policing, not a side assignment.

Hunt was hired as a full-time police officer by the Village of Goshen in November 2023, and his public profile has grown beyond traffic stops. A previous widely noticed encounter showed him engaging positively with a young man during a stop, a moment that added a community-policing dimension to his reputation. Now, with back-to-back Top Cop recognition, Hunt has become a visible example of how one officer’s enforcement record can reflect a department’s priorities on the street, on village roads and in the county’s wider fight against impaired driving.