50 Years of Service Celebrated by Stony Point Police Department

BY KATHY KAHN

Former State Trooper Stephen Scurti was hired by the Town of Stony Point in 1967 as its first police chief. Given a desk at Town Hall, with no badge, uniform, car or telephone, Scurti sat and wondered, “What the hell am I supposed to do?”

Year by year, Scurti grew his staff and by 1980, the town had a Police Department headquarters 1/8 mile off 9W. The department received its official accreditation in the 1990s.

Today, the Stony Point Police Department has grown to over two dozen full-time officers under the command of current Chief Brian Moore. Stony Point has become larger, the problems more complex, but its members have carried on with the same due diligence and respect for the community as it did when Chief Scurti was first hired in 1967, Stony Point Supervisor Jim Monaghan said.

It was a full house at the Clubhouse at Patriot Hills on Sunday, October 29, with nearly 300 guests came to  commemorate the Golden Jubilee of the Stony Point Police. The highlight of the afternoon was the opening of a time capsule buried by Scurti and his officers 25 years ago. “There are a lot of memories here,” said Scurti.

Packed with officers, their families and friends, Stony Point’s Police Department was saluted with a color guard from the Rockland County Sheriff’s Department. Members of the Fraternal Order of Police, the Rockland County PBA Shields, Town of Haverstraw Police Department and the Stony Point Town Board were among the crowd.

The problem troubling Scurti the most these days is the continued use of illegal drugs. “It is my gravest concern,” he said, well aware of the many souls in town who have perished in recent years due to abuse of opiates. There’s no telling the challenges and changes the next 50 years will bring to Stony Point’s police force, but the town’s officers appear up to the task.

  Brian Moore, sppd, Stephen Scurti, Stony Point, stony point police department