(Video of Captain Minard’s walkout following his final shift in Poughkeepsie)
POUGHKEEPSIE – City police captain Steven Minard worked his last shift with the Poughkeepsie Police Department on Friday, ending a 40-year career with the department. It also highlights the department’s staffing shortage, which is supposed to have 96 officers but is down to 75.
Minard, who began his law enforcement journey as a member of the Town of Fishkill Police Cadet program and then as an officer in Fishkill from 1981 to 1984 before traveling north to begin his full-time career with Poughkeepsie in 1984, serving as an officer, sergeant, and lieutenant before being promoted to captain in 2001. In that position, he spent 15 years commanding the patrol division. When the community was still in the depths of the crack cocaine epidemic, Minard served as the Assistant Coordinator of the Dutchess County Drug Task Force from 1994 to 1997.
Minard is widely known for his academic integrity, having received an associate’s bachelor’s, master’s, and his Ph.D. while working in the department. Minard attended the FBI National Academy in 2004 and the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development seminar in 2018.
Armed with a plethora of academic credentials, Minard has taught at numerous police academies while serving as an adjunct professor in the Marist College Criminal Justice program since 2005 and at Southern New Hampshire University since 2009.
With family, friends, and former coworkers watching, on-duty officers stood at attention outside the department on Friday as a City 911 dispatcher and Minard communicated on the radio for his last official transmission.
