Sixteen months after a federal investigation alleged the Mount Vernon Police Department engaged in unconstitutional practices following a troubling pattern of police misconduct, residents and activists say police officers’ behavior hasn’t changed.
The Department of Justice investigation opened in 2021, following a series published by The Gothamist that shed light on alleged unconstitutional practices. The DOJ released its findings in December 2024, writing “that there is reasonable cause to believe that MVPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution.”
Federal scrutiny of the department may have continued beyond that point. But in May 2025, the Trump administration ended federal investigations and lawsuits against Mount Vernon and other police departments across the nation.
Mount Vernon officers have a documented history of misconduct either before or during their time with the department, including unlawful strip searches, stalking, weapons charges and fraud — these incidents are detailed in misconduct records made public in New York in 2020, or in recent court cases. The department has also been accused of racial policing.
A dozen Mount Vernon officers have more than five misconduct incidents on their records, while another eight officers were decertified from the department between 2019 and 2024, according to New York public records.
Decertification, billed as one of the strongest officer discipline tools in the state, is meant to bar wayward officers from getting future police jobs — but they can still work in many law enforcement roles, an investigation from the USA TODAY Network, Syracuse University and Central Current found.
The federal investigation found that, in misconduct records it reviewed, only 8% of the Mount Vernon Police Department’s officers faced any discipline at all for misconduct, according to the report.
The DOJ report pointed to a litany of Mount Vernon’s alleged constitutional violations and listed 10 remedial measures the city “must adopt” to restore the public faith and to implement “constitutional and effective policing.”
While the federal agency reported a curtailing of some of the behaviors alleged in the report, like strip searches, investigators said they were “not confident that these practices ended.”
Despite this level of visibility of misconduct among its ranks, some community members say Mount Vernon is still struggling to right the ship. Experts say that losing oversight from federal or state agencies will hurt the department’s progress, while activists and federal officials point to recruitment patterns that could leave newer, younger officers without mentorship and accountability and factor into future misconduct problems.
The City of Mount Vernon maintains that the department has taken sustained, measurable steps to align its practices with constitutional policing standards through internal action beginning in January 1, 2020 — nearly two years before the DOJ investigation.
“These efforts began internally in 2020, prior to both the New York State mandated Police Reform Commission process as well as the Department of Justice patterns and practices investigation,” Tim Allen, director of communications for the City of Mount Vernon, wrote in a statement to USA TODAY Network.
Despite Mount Vernon’s moves toward reform, community members still express distrust with the department and wish for increased oversight. On May 2, 2026, dozens gathered outside City Hall for a rally sponsored by Save Mount Vernon, calling for reforms in the city and for police accountability.
Mount Vernon residents remain critical of the city’s administration, alleging City Hall has failed to provide oversight, leadership and funding structure in reforming the police department.
“It is a systemic dysfunction that comes from the top,” said Axel Ebermann, a Mount Vernon resident and former member of the Mount Vernon Police Reform Commission, a group formed in 2020 composed of both elected officials and community members.
‘Mount Vernon cannot police itself’
Mount Vernon covers four square miles just north of the Bronx in Westchester County, and 59.8% of its population is Black. Its poverty rate is 14.7% , as of 2024, according to U.S. Census data.
One of the primary constitutional violations addressed in the federal report was the use of unlawful strip searches and body cavity searches. According to the report, Mount Vernon had a policy of strip searching “every person they arrested,” with a commanding officer adding that officers “‘strip searched every person that came into the building.’”
In one often-cited example, officers conducted a traffic stop of two women, aged 65 and 72, who they claimed engaged in a hand-to-hand drug transaction. No evidence of contraband was found in the car, but the officers arrested the women, took them to the police station and conducted what one of the women recounted as a “humiliating” body cavity search.
Strip search policies have been tightened and there has not been a complaint related to these practices for the last five years, Allen said.
“Department records reflect less than five strip searches since 2023. This is a clear operational shift from incidents that were occurring prior to 2020,” Allen wrote.
The report also noted municipal financial mismanagement, leadership failures, data collection and records management as factors contributing to the state of the police department.
The DOJ in its findings wrote that the city’s leadership expressed “a commitment to improvement” despite significant challenges, taking steps to “remedy the dysfunction” and improve policing policies.
However, some residents say they fear the city hasn’t been held accountable to the task of improving.
That accountability, paired with adequate oversight, is what Jesse Van Lew, a community activist and founder of Save Mount Vernon, feels the city needs to move forward.
“The DOJ report was like a sigh of relief for the Mount Vernon police department because they would have somebody, a monitor over them to watch them,” Van Lew said. “We are only four square miles. If you need the county to come in or the state to come in, it needs oversight, needs accountability, needs change.”
Under Kristen Clarke, former U.S. assistant attorney general, more federal investigations into unconstitutional practices at police departments and consent decrees — a legally enforceable agreement between the DOJ and a police department to reform patterns of unconstitutional policing — were initiated than ever before, said Carlton T. Mayers, a police reform expert and attorney.
Now that the federal government has abandoned these investigations, Mayers said many are looking for other ways to hold police officers and agencies accountable.
Allen said City Hall holds quarterly meetings where MVPD leadership and the Mayor’s Office discuss ongoing policy review.
“Reform will continue regardless of the federal government’s posture,” Allen wrote. “The Department has already implemented or will be implementing systems, policies and procedures” touching on a variety of issues, including increased data collection, better and more direct supervisory review and increased training of all employees, he said.
Zachary Powell, an associate professor of criminal justice at California State University, San Bernadino, noted that an investigation doesn’t mean that every officer who is employed by the policy department acts illegally — there are just enough people that exhibit poor discretion frequently enough that it raises concern and suspicions.
“My hope for Mount Vernon…(is) that they thoroughly review these investigative findings and then take appropriate steps, whether through retraining or policy rewrites or collecting better data to understand how officers are interacting with the community and how they can better that relationship,” Powell said.
The same day the federal oversight was cancelled, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and local partners launched a Seven States Safety Campaign, filing coordinated public records requests to uncover police misconduct in Mount Vernon.
“The Mount Vernon Police Department cannot police itself: the department must now be fully transparent about their policing practices and implement necessary changes to confront police misconduct and protect the residents they have sworn to serve,” Daniel Lambright, NYCLU Special Counsel for Criminal Justice Litigation, said in the release.
Allen said local accountability remains the city’s responsibility. The department has layers of oversight on every civilian complaint that comes to the department, and any allegation that rises to any level of criminal activity is referred to the public integrity division of the Westchester County District Attorney’s office.
“In short, the Mount Vernon police department does not believe in the characterization that the department cannot police itself as shown by the type of civilian complaints received and the decrease in overall crime,” Allen wrote.
What reforms has the Mount Vernon Police Department put in place?
The department’s progress since 2020 and since the release of the DOJ’s findings reflects three distinct, but continuous, phases, Allen said. They are:
Allen said the department is in the process of further policy changes, including license plate reader usage, public and private camera system access and updated arrest and detention procedures.
However there are still remaining challenges the department faces, Allen said, including below-authorized staffing, facilities in need of repair and slow data systems.
“The Department now operates with stronger oversight, better data systems, and more consistent training,” Allen wrote. “The remaining challenges are structural, and resource driven.”
Mount Vernon officers embroiled in continued misconduct, decertifications
Despite these measures, a string of police misconduct continues to plague the department, according to news coverage and public records.
On March 26, Detective Kyren Braunskill was accused of selling guns to a Long Island gang.
Prosecutors in news coverage said Braunskill committed some of the crimes before joining the MVPD. He was promoted just a week before his arrest.
“The news of Detective Braunskill’s indictment is disappointing, however, the allegations precede his employment with the city,” the department said in a March 26 release. The city added that nothing alarming came back during Braunskill’s pre-employment background investigation, so the department proceeded with his hiring.
The department added that, in light of these developments, it will review its hiring and vetting practices to “ensure they meet the highest standards.”
On April 8, Officer Brandon Hunter-Carney faced charges after allegedly stealing an $800,000 check in 2023, before he became a member of the MVPD, his lawyer, John Dechiaro, confirmed.
On April 13, Mount Vernon police officials said Officer Frank Lucadamo, who faced stalking charges after he allegedly sent harassing messages to a retired colleague in Florida, had been suspended without pay.
The USA TODAY Network made attempts to contact all of these officers and their legal representation for comment for this story.
Braunskill and Hunter-Carney have no misconduct incidents listed from their time at the department in the USA TODAY Network police misconduct database, which includes Mount Vernon documents through 2024. Lucadamo was disciplined twice for “failure to perform duty” in 2022 and in 2019, according to misconduct data.
Last fall, five MVPD members were suspended without pay after a prison van shooting when a man handcuffed in the back of a police prisoner-transport van fired a gun during their transport to the Westchester County jail.
“Based on our established training, policies, and procedures, early findings indicate that the firearm should have been detected during arrest or intake,” an Oct. 23, 2025 Mount Vernon press release states. “While a 2022 policy update limited the broad use of strip searches, a properly conducted frisk or authorized strip search should have revealed the weapon.”
Following the transport-van incident, the department disciplined the officers involved, Allen said. He added that the department very slightly enhanced its arrest search procedures by mandating the use of a magnetometer in all arrests and implemented additional arrest and transport-related training for the entire department.
In the 8% of misconduct cases within the Mount Vernon Police Department that resulted in any disciplinary action, no officers were terminated and only one received an unpaid suspension, the DOJ report noted.
According to misconduct records analyzed by the USA Today Network, MVPD officers involved in instances of excessive force, strip searches and unlawful arrests remain actively employed and receiving promotions.
“They’ll do a smack on the wrist. Then (they’ll) sit down for a week or two, and then they’re back on the job,” Van Lew said.
Between August 2019 and February 2024, eight officers were decertified, four of which were removed during probationary periods, the USA TODAY Network found. Those officers have fewer than five misconduct cases each; another 12 Mount Vernon officers have at least five cases of misconduct. None of them have been decertified, according to available records and an analysis by the USA TODAY Network.
Decertification, a process originally enacted in New York in 2016 that strips officers of the credentials necessary to be a police officer, has had limited success as a way to curb police misconduct.
The process was strengthened by the Professional Policing Act of 2021, which allowed for permanent certificate revocations and gave the Department of Criminal Justice Services investigatory powers.
The process is now designed to combat the problem of so-called “wandering officers” — or those who may hop from job to job after discipline, termination or decertification — by “permanently decertifying police officers removed for cause and requiring hiring agencies to check state and national records before hiring,” Kirstan Conley, deputy director of public information for DCJS, wrote in a statement to USA TODAY Network.
It’s not clear exactly what sort of conduct led to each officer’s decertification, because that data is not public. But public records mentioning these officers, and a general list of qualifying misconduct, offer clues.
For example, one of Mount Vernon’s decertified officers, Timothy Gernon, was fired in January 2024 after the city claimed he used excessive and unnecessary force on a restrained, handcuffed and strapped woman, according to a Mount Vernon Police Supervisor Report and Use of Force Report obtained by the USA TODAY Network. He was removed for cause on Feb. 2, 2024.
In April 2025, A state judge ruled that Gernon was improperly fired and should be reinstated with full back pay because the majority of the department’s investigation was conducted after Gernon was terminated. The city appealed Williams’ decision and as of May 2026, there has been no public update regarding his reinstatement.
Timothy Gernon’s attorney, Richard Glickel, said he could not comment on ongoing litigation.
A full list of decertified officers can be found on the DCJS website.
The list of misconduct that would qualify an officer to be decertified for cause ranges from outright criminal activity, to dishonesty, excessive force or “gross negligence.”
Neither misconduct cases or decertification seem to deter Mount Vernon from hiring or promoting officers.
In 2020, Natasha Cheron and another female detective were cited in discipline records for a strip search they performed on two Mount Vernon women.
Both detectives said this search was routine and consistent with MVPD practice, according to misconduct records.
Cheron — who was listed in public records as having five misconduct incidents classified as failure to perform duty and being untruthful to supervisors between 2012 and 2024 — has received two promotions since her first misconduct case in 2012: a promotion to detective in 2018 and to sergeant in 2025. All but one case, from April 2024, appear to be substantiated by the department, according to misconduct records.
Meanwhile, Braunskill and another officer, Joseph Aufiero, were hired by the department after being decertified, or in the process of being decertified, by the New York State Department of Corrections & Community Supervision and Mount Pleasant Town Police Department, respectively, according to decertification records. In Aufiero’s case, Mount Vernon police said in 2018 that they were not aware of his impending decertification during the hiring process.
The USA TODAY Network was unable to reach Braunskill or Aufiero or their legal representation for comment.
The trouble of high turnover
Officials and community members agree that one factor contributing to the constant battle to raise officer standards in Mount Vernon is turnover related to recruitment.
The DOJ report noted that high officer turnover results in a lack of qualified field training officers to train incoming officers. Mount Vernon City Councilwoman Cynthia Turnquest-Jones added that other municipalities recruit the department’s police officers, who then leave for higher pay.
“But for the most part, what Mount Vernon Police Department has been trying to do since … not necessarily since George Floyd, but even before that, just making sure that the officers are officers from Mount Vernon,” Turnquest-Jones said. “But that has been quite a task to get individuals to take the test and become a part of the force.”
The Mount Vernon Police Association, a union representing all Mount Vernon officers, said in 2021 that other Westchester County departments view the city as a “minor league of sorts,” claiming the other departments “swoop in and take them” once the officers have matured.
The department’s staffing remains below authorized levels, Allen said, with less than 160 officers assigned compared to the previously budgeted 208 positions.
“This is a recruitment and retention issue that we are working on, in collaboration with the PBA, to bring back a steady work chart, increase the amount of equipment issued to them as well as increase the salaries,” Allen wrote.
In 2023, the base pay at the Mount Vernon Police Department was $92,000 versus $133,000 in nearby Greenburgh, CBS News reported.
“The cops stay two to three years and leave, right? And so the middle field has been completely hollowed out. The guys who should be training the rookie cops, just don’t exist anymore,” said Ebermann, the former chair of the Mount Vernon Police Reform Commission.
Turnquest-Jones, who considers herself an activist in the city, said that the MVPD is working to ensure citizens are engaged with officers outside of being in a crisis. She said she participated in the department’s Citizens Police Academy, which allows community members to get a better understanding of how the police force works in the city.
“What I saw and what I see when I work alongside with police officers, I see them as those who also want a better Mount Vernon, and that they have a rapport with the good, the bad and the ugly,” Turnquest-Jones said.
The Mount Vernon Police Reform Commission completed its first report in 2021, recommending, among other things, the establishment of a proper Civilian Complaint Review Board. The commission’s plan was adopted by the city that same year, but that goal hasn’t been met yet, according to the commission’s most recent report from 2023-2025.
Despite these steps being taken, Ebermann feels there’s still a long road ahead to transparency for the Mount Vernon Police Department.
“Right now, if something happens to you in terms of having an unpleasant interaction you still have to go through the police department, basically. And I had that for myself multiple times where I filed complaints, and then you’re dealing with the exact same people,” Ebermann said. “There’s no transparency.… and absolutely zero accountability.”
This story is part of a series called Shielded From Consequence, looking at the decertification of law enforcement officers in New York. The series is produced in partnership with Syracuse University and Central Current, a Syracuse nonprofit newsroom.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: NY police force drew federal scrutiny for misconduct. What’s changed?
Reporting by Marguerite Bellotti, Olivia Fried, Kendall Luther and Vic Maslia, USA TODAY Network / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
