New gang unit boss at Suffolk sheriff's office

Kevin Catalina outside the Suffolk County Correctional Facility in Yaphank on July 30. Credit: James Carbone
A former NYPD deputy chief took over this week as the new boss of the gang unit at the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office, county officials said.
Kevin Catalina, 51, who served as the commanding officer of the NYPD’s Gang Division from 2014 to 2016, is an expert at developing and implementing gang intelligence and suppression strategies, Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon Jr. said. Catalina, a 26-year NYPD veteran, also held jobs in counterterrorism operations, logistical planning and site security, Toulon said.
“Kevin is professional, intelligent and he understands our community,” Toulon said. “He brings to us a high level of expertise that is going to drive innovation and reduce crime in Suffolk County.”
Catalina replaces Undersheriff Joseph Caracappa, who retired from the department when the term of Toulon’s predecessor, Sheriff Vincent DeMarco, ended Dec. 31.
The sheriff’s department, with 1,200 correction officers, deputies and civilian employees, operates county jails in Yaphank and Riverhead.
Catalina’s main job will be monitoring conflicts between members of the Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, MS-13 and other Suffolk County street gangs incarcerated in the jails.
“We are striving to stop violence, whether it is in your neighborhood or in a correctional facility,” Catalina said in a recent interview. “Every shooting and stabbing is important. Every life is important.”
Catalina said intelligence that officials are able to extract from correctional facilities can also be used to prevent or prosecute crimes committed outside the razor-wire fences that ring the county jails. He said he is looking forward to sharing information with the Suffolk police, Nassau police, the FBI and East End law-enforcement agencies.
“There is a tremendous correlation between what happens in jails and what happens on the street,” Catalina said. “If someone gets stabbed in the Riverhead Correctional Facility, that could have implications later in Bellport.”
Catalina, who will also oversee the sheriff’s office administration, training academy and deputy sheriff operations, has lived in Suffolk County his entire life. He said he dreamed about pursuing a career in law enforcement even before he graduated from Sayville High School in 1985.
Catalina worked in precincts in South Jamaica and Jackson Heights before joining the Queens gang squad in the late 1990s. He was assigned to the New York City medical examiner’s office after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Working out of a makeshift morgue in lower Manhattan, Catalina helped identify bodies and categorize body parts found after the Twin Towers collapsed.
“Those are three weeks I’ll never forget,” he said.
Catalina eventually returned to the Queens gang squad. The previous generation of gang members had used guns to settle disputes over the drug trade, but the gang members of the early 2000s engaged in what Catalina calls “recreational violence.” Shootings and other gang-related violence spiked.
Catalina and his officers turned to cellphone technology and social media to learn about planned assaults and intervene before violence occurred.
“We used text messages, Facebook posts, every available bit of information we could get to build larger violence conspiracy cases,” he said.
The violence ebbed. Gang members who had used social media to plot assaults now used it to warn each other to chill out.
Catalina said it was also important to engage with gang members on the street and talk to their parents. It fostered a respect for the police, he said.
“It brought order to that world. Ten percent of gang members are responsible for 90 percent of gang crimes. Most of them didn’t like the violence. They wanted us involved,” Catalina said.
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