One NY officer’s struggles: ‘He was alone a lot….He had to make these tough calls’

Over two years, the Geneva City Police Department reprimanded then-Officer Trevor Wagner for not doing his job properly 11 times.

On one October night in 2019, then-Sgt. Nicholas Bielowicz cited Wagner for five incidents in a single shift.

Wagner is one of 21 officers at the Geneva City Police Department who were disciplined for not doing their job properly in a 16-year time period leading up to the early part of this decade, a USA TODAY Network-New York database of police records shows.

Records show that Geneva officers like Wagner have at times failed to perform even the most straightforward tasks, such as checking on a domestic violence victim or investigating a burglary. Geneva Police Chief Ronald Eveland said his officers’ past deficiencies are due to a lack of experience and the department’s shrinking staffing.

“Unfortunately, it got to the point where we lost a policeman at it,” Eveland said, referring to Wagner. “But, I want the best quality policeman that we can have here.”

Fewer Geneva personnel, more isolation for officer

Eveland believes that Wagner’s work deficiencies were noticed more once 2020 came around. During this time, a substantial number of officers left the department. That was a year, amid the pandemic and racial justice protests, when the Geneva City Council decreased support and funding of the department amid police reform efforts fueled by the national outcry over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Courtesy of Ronald Eveland

Ronald Eveland is a fourth-generation police officer and has been Geneva’s police chief since June 2024.

“We were running more or less at minimum staffing. So his deficiencies were more highlighted,” Eveland said. “He used to be able to hide his… I don’t know, lack of police knowledge because he had a lot of backup. And I think once we went to that minimum staffing, he was alone a lot. A lot of the time he had to make these tough calls, and I think it just made him stand out in a negative way.”

Photo by Will Cleveland | Rochester Democrat And Chronicle

Geneva Police Chief Michael Passalacqua during a press conference in July 2019.

USA TODAY Network-New York gave Wagner’s spouse a letter at the couple’s residence explaining the focus of this story and giving him an opportunity to discuss his experiences with the Geneva Police Department. Wagner did not reach back out to the D&C, effectively declining to comment on the story.

Database highlights NY police discipline details

USA TODAY Network-New York has created a database of police disciplinary records through Freedom of Information requests. Through reporters’ work to collect, document and publish decades of disciplinary records, stories are being published to reflect the challenges and opportunities facing local police departments.

Do you have questions about police misconduct records in your New York hometown? Submit your questions to our online form.

Twice, according to files in the database supplied by the city of Geneva, Wagner used his police vehicle mobile data terminal to watch videos. The first time, on Oct. 23, 2019, Wagner left his computer open in his police vehicle with video streaming after a burglary in-progress call.

Three months later, on Jan. 16, 2020, his superiors caught him because he turned on his body camera as he started a vehicle pursuit, which in turn recorded himself using the streaming service. Wagner received counseling memos and had a discussion with Bielowicz and the shift supervisor as a result, records state.

Photo by Sofia Abdullina

Interviews with Geneva officials showed city leaders are wrestling with the challenges of managing a police force made up of mostly newer officers, amid challenges in recruiting and retaining officers.

During one instance in 2019, Wagner was the last patrol unit to arrive at the scene of an active burglary even though he was the closest unit to the scene of the burglary. In another record that same year, Wagner is described as standing and watching while a sergeant conducted an interview of a suspect even though it was Wagner’s case, reports said.

In a message sent to Bielowicz available in the records, Wagner’s response was simply “I was tired during this shift and didn’t really feel myself, unfortunately it showed in my work.”

Domestic violence case protocol: ‘It must have just slipped my mind’

In July 2019, disciplinary records show that Wagner failed to properly search the belongings of someone he had just arrested. Ontario County jailers later found marijuana in the suspect’s purse, which was not recreationally legal in New York at the time. Wagner said he did not observe the marijuana when he checked the purse, reports said.

According to the records, then-Sgt. Patrick Nolin resolved Wagner’s failing through verbal counseling.

Wagner’s failure to do his job properly extended to his response to a domestic incident in March 2019, records show.

While Wagner completed and submitted a domestic incident report, he never actually followed protocol for this type of incident, which includes supervising the suspect and making sure that an “order of protection” is in effect, records state. He indicated that he followed protocol in the report, but when asked about it by Sgt. Bielowicz, Wagner responded “It must have just slipped my mind” as recorded in a document in USA TODAY Network-New York’s database.

Bielowicz sent Wagner a counseling memo on March 26, 2019, urging him not to make the same mistake again.

Courtesy of Geneva Police

The official seal of the Geneva Police Department.

Geneva police records: A burglary not investigated properly

On Oct. 31, 2020, Wagner failed to properly complete an investigation concerning a man who filed a complaint about someone reaching into his window and grabbing his hair while he was sleeping, disciplinary records state. Wagner did not examine the window for fingerprints, did not secure a deposition from the victim or inquire if he wanted to press charges and did not even try to find the suspect, according to the records.

Wagner closed out the victim’s complaint with a “Gone on Arrival” claim, meaning that the suspect was gone before he got to the scene of the crime.

“What we found out after the fact was an actual burglary, but he did not recognize those elements when he was there on scene,” Eveland said of Wagner.

Because of this incident, Wagner received a suspension of five days without pay. That did not go into effect until April 2021, nearly six months later. Michael J. Passalacqua, the chief of Geneva police in 2021, formally issued Wagner’s suspension.

“Your failure to correct your performance when informal disciplinary measures were taken against you has brought us to this point today,” wrote Passalacqua in a letter to Wagner on March 30, 2021.

Photo by Sofia Abdullina

Displays inside the Geneva public safety building.

Wagner had violated four Geneva Police Department General Orders, some of them more than once, before receiving five days of unpaid suspension, the records in his file show. Wagner continued to work at the department for a year and a half without consistently doing his job properly. He received informal disciplinary measures for two years before losing pay in 2021.

Wagner would voluntarily resign from the department nine months later on Jan. 16, 2022.

Police officer retention challenges: ‘The majority of our experience has since left’

Eveland said the biggest hurdle he has seen in his year-plus as Geneva’s chief has been the lack of experience of his officers. He attributes this mainly to a declining number of quality applicants for officer positions.

“Now we’re seeing, nobody’s staying in law enforcement after their 20 years. The majority of our experience has since left due to attrition,” Eveland said. “We’re in this very unique shift where we’ve just had an older generation retire and are trying to fill that in. We’re in a growing stage right now, really.”

Eveland spoke in the weeks before news emerged that one of his now-former officers had been charged in connection with the sale of a controlled substance, and that two other members of his team were placed on administrative leave amid the investigation.

Christopher Mercado is an adjunct assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who spent 28 years of his career at the New York Police Department. He said there is currently a recruitment and retention crisis in policing due to a high turnover rate.

College student debt, Mercado says, is a reason for young people’s hesitancy to commit to working at one police department for their entire career.

“People don’t see it as a long-term career. They want the dynamics and the flexibility to be able to say, ‘I want to do six years here. I want to try something else and do something over here,’” Mercado said.

Learning the ins ad outs of the law as a rookie police officer

Photo by Julia Kahen

A bulletin board, filled with logos from various police departments, on display at the Geneva Police Department.

An incident like Wagner’s failure to investigate the burglary could happen again today, Eveland said. Most officers at the Geneva police department have two to three years of experience in the force, which Eveland says makes it difficult for them to fully understand the laws and procedures they must follow.

“I think the difficult thing about being a police officer is that you have to wear so many different hats. You know, you’re expected to know all the ins and outs of vehicle and traffic law or the penal law,” Eveland said. “So I do think that that could potentially happen.”

Since Eveland has become chief, the department had two recorded disciplinary issues as of early spring, neither of them pertaining to failure to perform duty. Eveland said his current staff is motivated and dedicated to the communities they serve in Geneva.

“I think the previous issues we were having, they were all, I don’t know the best way to put it…just poor quality [decisions], really,” Eveland said.

According to Mercado, if a police chief leads by example, morally and ethically, disciplinary action wouldn’t have to be taken because officers would instill the chief’s sense of right and wrong in themselves.

“When you work for an effective leader, you’re not worried about doing the wrong thing…I think a lot of the professionalism you want to inculcate and replicate in yourself, so you want to mold yourself after this individual,” Mercado said.

Meanwhile, Geneva chief’s is confident in his knowledge of each of his staff and is working to make improvements in the work ethic of his officers.

“We’re 34 officers from myself all the way down. I know all the strengths and weaknesses of all the guys and girls that work for me. I feel like it’s more difficult for things to slip through the cracks,” Eveland said.

“Whether I’m involved with a certain call or not, I understand that it’s a reflection of me.”

List of disciplinary incidents involving Geneva Officer Trevor Wagner