by Margay Blackman,
Brockport Village Mayor
It was a cold, rainy, but quiet early April night when I climbed into the passenger seat of Sergeant Geoff Catlin’s police car just after 10 p.m. At this point in the series “Profiles in Policing,” I had written my way through the specialties (Investigator, Drug Recognition Expert, K9 Officer) and was working my way down the chain of command from the Chief to the sergeants, the first level of supervisors. Geoff Catlin is a recent appointee to the position, having been tapped by Paul Wheat when he became Chief. Sgt. Catlin oversees the first platoon, the night shift, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Catlin is one of two Sergeants in the Brockport Police Department (BPD). The other is Robert Hagen, who works the third platoon, 2 to 10 p.m. I purposely chose a night other than a weekend night for a ride-along so that we could easily talk as Sgt. Catlin drove the streets of the village. I recorded our interview.
Sgt. Catlin proved very conversational. “Ask away, I’m an open book. I’m brutally honest with everyone. That’s just how I operate,” he assured me. He was hired in 2014 by Chief Varrenti; he and Elliot Cave came into the BPD together and were the last officers the village has put through the police academy.
Like several others, he is local, graduating from Brockport High School and holding an Associate’s degree in Criminal Justice from Genesee Community College. And, like a few other BPD officers, he is also a parishioner at Brockport’s Nativity Catholic Church.
Catlin said many officers “have law enforcement in their families, but I didn’t, so I sought it out.” He worked at the Brockport Diner for eight years, starting in high school, and often interacted with the police who stopped in for coffee or meals. They recruited him for the high school Police Explorers program, which really opened his eyes to policing. Steve Mesiti, then Sergeant, headed the program and was an important mentor to Geoff. At regular meetings in the basement of the fire hall, the Explorers were introduced to various police topics – traffic stops, building searches, and understanding drugs. They went on ride-alongs and toured the Monroe County Public Safety Facility. They did community service. The Explorers are still with the BPD, overseen by officers Sime (K9 handler) and Dawson (Investigator).
“When I went to college, my goal – my only goal – was to become an officer,” said Sgt. Catlin. “No backup plan. I couldn’t see myself in any other job. Brockport was the only place I had aspirations to work. I grew up here.” Following his time with the Explorers, Sgt. Catlin honed his policing skills in a college internship with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. Once hired by the BPD just days after his 21st birthday, he entered the police academy at the Monroe County Public Safety Facility.
The police department pays the attendee for participating in and graduating from the six-month academy. Catlin described it as very intensive and militaristic, like basic training with both physical and classroom instruction. Sgt. Catlin still consults the two thick binders he has from his academy days. Upon graduation, the new officer returns to the department to complete 180 days of field training with a departmental field training officer. Not only do they work with different officers, but they also switch shifts.
During our discussion, we drove most of the village streets, some of them twice. On Holley Street, we stopped by the new pedestrian bridge and boathouse under construction. We shined our headlights on a few deer eating grass behind 200 State Street. On North Main Street, we stopped in front of what had been the butcher shop; new shelving was now filled with glass pipes. I had hoped the butcher would return to business in the building after the bridge rehab, as he indicated when the bridge first closed. A few doors away stood the empty space of CHPC’s offices, a computer and IT services business headquartered in Medina. They put up the webcam on Custom House to focus on the Main Street bridge work, but the camera has been silenced for several months; CHPC moved out of Brockport, one of several casualties of the Main Street bridge project.
Early into our ride, we were called to a domestic disturbance at Willowbrooke Apartments. Domestic calls have notably increased since COVID. Officer Blodgett and Sgt. Catlin resolved the immediate issue that had triggered the call. Catlin reflected on the inherent challenge of domestics: “You’re dealing with years of issues. The expectation is that the police can fix it, but there are so many moving parts and a backstory. You try to solve the problem that led to the situation that night.”
I asked about his responsibilities as Sergeant. Property management is one. The property room, comprised of non-agency property (found, seized, or otherwise criminal evidence), is heavily regulated, secured, audited, and inventoried. Catlin is training another property clerk and streamlining the agency’s property procedures.
The police fleet is another. The police Department recently received a federal no-match grant for $190,000 to procure and upfit (outfit for police use) three new police cars. Catlin is in charge of the upfitting process, in addition to assigning vehicles to officers and performing fleet maintenance.
Sgt. Catlin also manages the field training program when new officers need training, the Honor Guard (for funerals), and departmental equipment, from the building itself to radar and breathalyzers. He is also in charge of the sex offender registry, responsible for tracking and monitoring sex offenders who reside in the village.
Talk turned to his supervisory responsibilities over the night platoon. “I want to be the kind of leader where people want to come to work. Part of being a leader – do the work; don’t ask someone else to do it.” He sees being in charge while simultaneously being friends as an advantage in his position. “I’m still your friend and I’m still your boss. Respect each other. This correlates back to working in the community I grew up in. Some people see it as a disadvantage. I see it as having intimate knowledge and insight about constituents and residents.”
Catlin has worked every shift in the department. His favorite? The day shift. “I like to talk to people, walk through schools, walk through the court, stop and talk to residents.” The late-night shift is pretty much devoid of those opportunities.
Off duty, Catlin says, “I’m a big family guy. I enjoy doing anything with my kids.” He and his wife have three children.
In warm weather, Sgt. Catlin spends off-duty hours working with another member of the BPD doing hardscaping. “I’m an outdoor guy,” he confesses. “I’d rather be outside than looking at a computer screen.”
Like the others I have interviewed, Sgt. Catlin is passionate about policing in a small community. “Because it’s small, you can provide more and better service. Officers could work elsewhere and make more money. Agencies in the county offer sign-on bonuses; we don’t. When politics and policing overlap, dangerous things happen. If the officers weren’t committed to Brockport, they wouldn’t be here. It makes the agency even more tightly knit.”
Despite the commitment to a small community, Brockport police services and obligations can range well beyond Brockport. Sometimes quite far away, as they did when Sgt. Catlin recently answered a resident’s request involving a mental health crisis that their colleague in Missouri was experiencing. The BPD got in touch with the city police there, who secured needed mental health assistance for the individual and resolved the immediate crisis.
About policing, Sgt. Catlin mused, “Law enforcement is unique because we deal with so many individuals on a daily basis. We don’t remember every interaction. But every single person you encounter as a police officer will remember that encounter and how they were treated. That’s something that you don’t get in many other careers.”
