Suffolk County approves $3 million settlement in Walter Kellogg police shooting case

Suffolk County has agreed to pay $3 million to settle the estate of Walter Kellogg, the Shirley man shot and killed by Suffolk County Police Officer Frank Santanello on Dec. 15, 2018. The payout adds another large check to a county budget already absorbing repeated police-misconduct claims, and it keeps the question of accountability front and center for taxpayers.

Terri Miehle-Kellogg filed the federal civil-rights and state-law lawsuit on Aug. 29, 2019, after her husband was killed outside their Shirley home. Suffolk police Internal Affairs Bureau later cleared Santanello of wrongdoing, but the Suffolk County Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee authorized the $3 million settlement at its March 3, 2026 meeting. The county’s legal and financial machinery then put public dollars behind a case that has lingered for more than seven years.

The Kellogg payout is part of a broader run of settlements that has cost Suffolk residents heavily in 2026. Suffolk lawmakers agreed to pay nearly $4 million in police-misconduct claims in the first three months of the year, with Newsday reporting the total at $3.9 million. Last year, lawmakers approved at least $1.8 million in police-related lawsuit settlements, underscoring how frequently these cases return to the legislature as a cost of doing business.

Suffolk County self-insures claims up to $3 million, while losses above that are covered by a catastrophic policy with an outside insurer. Settlement payments are approved by resolution through the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee and signed off by the County Executive. If budgeted funds are not enough, the legislature can authorize serial bonds to pay settlements, awards and judgments, shifting the burden even further onto future taxpayers.

The Kellogg case also lands against a wider policing-reform backdrop. In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice said the Suffolk County Police Department had reached sustained compliance with parts of its reform settlement, including tracking hate crimes and hate incidents, investigating allegations of misconduct, and developing policies and training. Yet other parts of the agreement remained in place, a reminder that compliance findings do not erase the financial and public trust costs of past police conduct.

That same tension has shown up before. In July 2023, a federal judge approved a $3.75 million Suffolk police settlement in an unrelated civil-rights case brought by 21 Latino drivers, and the agreement required improved training, background checks and more public data on traffic stops. For Suffolk County, the settlements keep mounting, even as the promise of reform remains unfinished.