SCPD's Milagros Soto, highest-ranking female, promoted to IAB assistant chief, top cop says

Longtime Suffolk police official Milagros "Millie" Soto was promoted Tuesday to assistant chief of the Internal Affairs Bureau on Tuesday, making her the highest-ranking female and minority member of the department, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison said.

“She didn’t get this position because she is female and a minority,” Harrison said of Soto, who is of Puerto Rican descent and had previously served as deputy chief of internal affairs. “She got it because she is deserving of it and because she has spent 35 years with this department.” 

Soto will oversee investigations of complaints made against officers, Harrison said.

Soto told Newsday in an interview that women and minorities bring different perspectives to departments long dominated by white men, and that she hopes her promotion inspires young people of color to work in law enforcement. 

“We recognize this sends a message that trickles all over,” she said. “I hope we can really inspire people who have never considered law enforcement to consider it as a career.”

Michael Romagnoli, another veteran Suffolk police official, was named chief of operations, making him responsible for everything from officers’ vehicles to the 911 call center to the management of the Suffolk Police Academy in Brentwood.

Romagnoli, who served as acting chief of operations prior to his promotion, has worked for the Suffolk police for 31 years. He was an NYPD officer for five years prior to that. 

Harrison said Romagnoli has held a variety of jobs with the department, including commander of the 4th Precinct and deputy chief of patrol. 

“There is nobody that works harder in this department than Mike Romagnoli,” Harrison said.

Suffolk has struggled to diversify the department despite a 1980s federal consent decree mandating the hiring of more people of color in response to allegations of discrimination against Black, Hispanic and female candidates. 

Suffolk police and the U.S. Justice Department also entered into a monitoring agreement in 2014 in response to complaints from advocates over the department's treatment of the Latino community in the wake of the 2008 hate-crime killing of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero, who was fatally beaten by a group of white youths in Patchogue.

Newsday reported in 2021 that Black and Hispanic applicants are less likely to be hired by both the Nassau and Suffolk police departments, which rejected candidates of color at rates that exceeded federal standards used to uncover evidence of discrimination.

 Soto was for ex-commissioner Geraldine Hart’s liaison with the task force that developed the police reform plan ordered by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo after George Floyd was killed while in custody of police in Minnesota. She said the department has begun the process of including the county’s Human Rights Commission into Internal Affairs investigations, a key part of the reform plan. 

While working with the reform task force, Soto said, she learned that many residents had little faith in Internal Affairs because they were not informed about the process after they filed a complaint. She said she is working to remedy that. 

“We are here to serve the county, and we want people to know we take this seriously,” she said.