More than 75 Suffolk County police officers promoted in Brentwood ceremony

More than 75 Suffolk County police officers moved into new ranks in Brentwood, a staffing shift county leaders said is meant to keep patrols, investigations and precinct command steady across Long Island’s largest county force.

At the April 19 ceremony at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood, Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine and Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina recognized the newly promoted members, whose ranks ranged from sergeant to inspector. Among the highest-profile changes, Inspector Joseph Hauswirth was named commanding officer of the Seventh Precinct, and Inspector Markus Rivera was assigned to lead the Second Precinct.

For residents in Babylon, Huntington, Islip, Smithtown and Brookhaven, the promotions matter because the Suffolk County Police Department handles day-to-day policing in those towns and also backs up the five eastern towns with specialized services and resources. The department, the second largest county police agency in the United States, has about 2,500 sworn officers spread across patrol, detectives, communications, identification and central records, along with its own academy. Leaders say the new ranks help keep that structure working as the county grows and public-safety demands shift.

The department’s size traces back to 1960, when Suffolk unified 33 separate law-enforcement agencies into one county force with 619 sworn officers. The growth since then has been dramatic, but so have staffing pressures. In February 2024, county officials announced promotions for 68 members and added 24 detectives after citing retirements and vacant funded positions. That round filled one chief, one deputy chief, three deputy inspectors, one captain, six lieutenants, two detective sergeants, 30 sergeants and 24 detectives.

Brentwood has now become a familiar stage for those leadership announcements. A similar promotion ceremony there on April 19, 2024 honored nearly 200 officers who had advanced since 2022, including Chief of Detectives Darrel Simmons, Chief of Operations Michael Romagnoli and Assistant Chief Milagros Soto, the highest-ranking female in department history. This year’s ceremony sent the same message to communities from the South Shore to the East End: Suffolk’s police leadership is being reshaped to keep pace with a county where response times, patrol coverage and command decisions affect daily life in every town the department serves.