Long Beach City Council Recognizes Police Department Members For Role In Drug And Gun Bust

LONG BEACH, NY — The Long Beach City Council took a few minutes before its meeting Tuesday night to honor a few members of the community who had been in the headlines recently: The police department, who took part in a raid that recovered cash, drugs and guns from a Long Beach residence in August.

Speaking on behalf of the department was Deputy Inspector Stefan Chernaski, whom the city council asked to lead the pledge of allegiance before the meeting, before Council President Brendan Finn called him and his colleagues to the podium before the council to talk about the police work that went into the operation.

“We have a great police department, I think most of us know that,” Finn said. “And they had a very great arrest and search warrant results from a case they worked just about 10 days ago…we’re going to ask Stefan and his team to come up and please explain it. We’d like to honor you guys. It’s an unofficial honor right now, because the case is still pending.”

There was no official proclamation made in recognition of the officers who had worked on the case. Both Finn and Chernaski said that the case is pending, and the man arrested — 34-year-old Long Beach resident Charles Burns — remains innocent until proven guilty under the law.

Burns has pleaded not guilty to all 59 of the charges that he currently faces.

“We recovered 23 illegal guns, A1 felony-weight narcotics — A1 is the highest possible felony charge you could have — there was cocaine, crack, meth, heroin and assorted pills, all recovered from that scene,” Chernaski said. “What’s important to us, personally, is [that] there was a time, not too long ago, in 2021, when this narcotics task force had been disbanded. It was defunded, and we were rendered very, very short-staffed, so I’d like to thank this council and city manager [Dan] Creighton for restoring this task force.”

For his part, Creighton said he wanted to thank the detectives themselves.

"They did an incredible job. This detective division has done outstanding work, they always have," Creighton said during the city manager's report. "This team really has done incredible work, we really thank them. I think it has resulted in a significant amount of drugs taken off the street, a significant amount of guns taken off the street.

While Chernaski said he could not provide further detail on the raid, citing the ongoing prosecution, the Long Beach deputy inspector did say that the investigation had produced a concrete result already.

“23 illegal guns is a lot of guns,” Chernaski said. “And we’re glad we were able to take those off the street…No matter what, those guns never go back [onto Long Beach Streets]. No matter what happens, those guns are going to get chopped up.”