Police Officer Salvatore Alongi is one of two cops the Civilian Complaint Review Board found had violated department guidelines regarding abuse of authority and excessive use of force in a deadly March 2024 interaction with 19-year-old Win Rozario inside his family’s Ozone Park home.
The department is required to notify the CCRB if a cop facing disciplinary charges has begun the process of retiring, in order to give the watchdog agency a chance to speed up a disciplinary trial.
That did not happen with Alongi, and on Thursday Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch acknowledged the mistake and issued a mea culpa. “When we make a mistake, we need to acknowledge it,” Tisch said in a statement.
“We should have notified the CCRB before the Pension Board considered Officer Alongi’s disability pension so that CCRB could take whatever steps it deemed appropriate.
As a result of human error, we failed to do so, and I apologize for that mistake.” Moments before police officers from the 102nd Precinct in Ozone Park, Queens, shot and killed Win Rozario on March 27, 2024, as his mother tried to protect him.