{"id":191323,"date":"2026-04-09T20:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T20:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/191323\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T20:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T20:32:07","slug":"2nd-mount-vernon-police-officer-charged-in-2-weeks-raises-alarm-whos-doing-the-vetting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/191323\/","title":{"rendered":"2nd Mount Vernon police officer charged in 2 weeks raises alarm: &#8220;Who&#8217;s doing the vetting?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Another Mount Vernon, New York, police officer is on the wrong side of the law, prosecutors said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the second time in two weeks a Mount Vernon police officer has been charged.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>2 charged in 2 weeks<\/p>\n<p>Years before Brandon Hunter-Carney joined Mount Vernon Police, he allegedly took possession of a stolen check for $800,000, created a corporation using the same name, opened a bank account and deposited it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>His arrest Wednesday came just days after Det. Kyren Braunskill was charged in an alleged <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/newyork\/news\/mount-vernon-detective-indicted-long-island-gang-takedown\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">gun trafficking conspiracy<\/a> on Long Island.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Braunskill was hired by Mount Vernon shortly after he was fired as a New York State Prison Guard and put on a &#8220;decertification list&#8221; due to misconduct. He&#8217;s accused of providing firearms to gang members while working as an NYPD 911 operator from 2021-2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lawyers for Hunter-Carney and Braunskill said they&#8217;re preparing to defend against the charges.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Was he properly vetted in the city? Who&#8217;s doing the vetting in Mount Vernon?&#8221; community activist Jess Van Lew said Thursday.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mount Vernon to review hiring practices<\/p>\n<p>In light of the arrests of Hunter-Carney and Braunskill, Mount Vernon has promised to review its hiring practices and internal affairs follow-up procedures for current and potential employees.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Lawlor, a police expert who reviews hiring in New Haven, Connecticut, says it&#8217;s now vital for Mount Vernon to scrutinize its hiring practices.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think a rigorous background check is the only way to avoid this type of incident,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Lawlor said the goal is to hire candidates who meet the physical, mental and ethical requirements for a demanding job.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ll look at your social media, other contacts, talk to your neighbors. There&#8217;s some departments in Connecticut that even require candidates to unlock their phones so they can look at all their text messages, photos, et cetera,&#8221; he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lawlor said many departments today go the extra mile to screen recruits for red flags, including the use of polygraph tests.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another Mount Vernon, New York, police officer is on the wrong side of the law, prosecutors said.\u00a0 It&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6336,9,11,10,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-191323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-mount-vernon","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-westchester-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}