Rockville Centre Police honor Gennario on his last day as commissioner

Current and retired members of the Rockville Centre Police Department bid farewell to Charles Gennario, whose eight-year stint as the village’s police commissioner officially ended last month, during a surprise ceremony.

More than a dozen of the department’s members stood outside police headquarters on Maple Avenue in the late afternoon on March 30 and saluted the now-former commissioner, who the village decided they would not reappoint earlier this year because “he was contemplating retirement,” officials said. Gennario, 63, told the Herald he was not ready to retire.

Gennario spent 32 years in the Rockville Centre Police Department, and is the former president of the Nassau County Municipal Police Chiefs Association.

Mike Meehan, a retired detective, played the bagpipes during the gathering, and the Nassau County Police Department arranged for a helicopter to fly over the area. Officials of other neighboring departments also attended.

Gennario said he had no idea his friends and colleagues would greet him as he left the building, calling it overwhelming. “That department is made up of fantastic people, and that just showed it even more,” he told the Herald. “[I was] absolutely speechless.”