Spotlight: Geraldine Hart ’95

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Law enforcement is in Geraldine Hart’s blood. Her father, who was a sergeant with the New York City Police Department, was the native Long Islander’s first role model. Then came a fifth grade field trip to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters in Washington, DC.   

At the time, the FBI had everything under one roof, so we could walk around and see the ballistics and crime scene evidence testing as well as the firing range,” Hart recalls. “That day gave me a real feel for what an FBI agent does. To me, it was very appealing.” 

Through the years, that appeal never dimmed, and Hart started her legal studies at St. John’s Law aiming to work for the FBI after graduation. In the classroom and through co-curricular activities and internships, she built the knowledge and skills she needed to land her first full-time job with the FBI, embarking on a law enforcement career there that spanned 21 years. 

Today, Hart continues her public service as the first female Commissioner of the Suffolk County Police Department. The New York Times recently featured Hart in a story about her office’s renewed work on the infamous Gilgo Beach murders, “a multiple-murder investigation that had confounded her predecessors for nearly a decade.”

Read the NYT story