Stefan Chernaski<\/a> and John Roll. They trained at the Cross Street Academy, an elementary school in East Williston that also served as Nassau County\u2019s police academy.\u00a0<\/p>\nAll four were hired by the LBPD on March 30, 1995, and graduated from the academy that November, part of a class of 186. In his early days as a police officer, Munsterman said, he soaked up knowledge from other officers like a sponge.<\/p>\n
One crucial thing he learned was how to be on guard while also being human. Sometimes when a defendant was taken into custody, for instance, he might give him or her a hot cup of coffee \u2014 something most officers would not do. \u201cYou work for the people of Long Beach,\u201d Munsterman said, \u201cand one thing I\u2019ve really held on to was treating everyone with respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beginning in 2003, he was assigned to the department\u2019s Narcotics Task Force. One call, he remembered, involved a Long Beach man who attempted to evade police after a traffic stop. Munsterman said he and other officers chased the man in their patrol cars over the Long Beach Bridge into Island Park. Munsterman ran after the man along the railroad tracks, and along the way, he recalled, the man made two failed attempts to steal vehicles, and the two got into several altercations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI chased him for probably half a mile,\u201d Munsterman said. \u201cIt was quite the chase.\u201d<\/p>\n
Munsterman and Chernaski, who\u2019s now the department\u2019s deputy inspector, patrolled the streets together as officers from 1995 to 2003. Munsterman was promoted to detective in 2005, and to sergeant in 2014.<\/p>\n
Chernaski, a service award recipient in 1998, said that Munsterman deserved the award, and described him as a no-nonsense investigator and a compassionate human being. \u201cHe puts his heart and soul into the department,\u201d Chernaski said. \u201cI\u2019m really proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Munsterman has always known how to have a little fun. When officers were asked to attend city or county court, he would prank them by standing outside the courtroom in uniform and making calls to their flip phones, which they had clipped to their belts. Chernaski called it a \u201cclassic Walter moment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
DePalma said he learned a lot from Munsterman during their time on the Narcotics Task Force in 2004, when they were both officers. DePalma described him as detail-oriented and respectful, adding that Munsterman is a people person.<\/p>\n
Decades ago, DePalma recalled, he and Munsterman were involved in a chase on Long Beach Road. Munsterman was in a squad car, and DePalma was pursuing on foot. At one point, Munsterman\u2019s voice came over DePalma\u2019s radio, warning him about an oncoming bus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWalter had a very distinctive voice,\u201d DePalma said. \u201cI would have been a pancake if I didn\u2019t hear his voice. The bus was literally inches from my face and I never saw it.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a Long Beach grade-schooler in the late 1970s and \u201980s, Munsterman said, he spent lots of time playing club sports, including youth hockey at the recreation center. He also remembers skateboarding back and forth from Long Beach to Hewlett with longtime friend Mike Durant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These days, when he isn\u2019t working, Musterman enjoys playing golf on courses across Long Island.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And, he said, he doesn\u2019t notice as many kids hanging around on street corners as there used to be. \u201cYou don\u2019t see kids outside a lot anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully they\u2019re busy doing something productive and staying out of trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long Beach native Walter Munsterman still remembers going to City Hall in 1991 to take a civil service…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[132907,131,133,132,132908,867,99580,132906],"class_list":["post-318051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-distinguished-service-award","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-long-beach-ny-news","tag-long-beach-police-department","tag-nassau-county-police","tag-walter-munsterman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}