Ronan Seltenreich Named Quogue Police Officer Of The Year

It was around 3:30 in the morning, in the middle of a night shift just a few months ago, that Quogue Village Police Officer Ronan Seltenreich found himself witnessing a crime in progress.

After stopping to check out a truck that was parked and running off Route 104, he noticed two men trying to cut through a fence and break into a commercial site. There had been several burglaries of commercial businesses in the village and across the East End recently, and the likely perpetrators were, startlingly, in his sights. When the men (who were part of a team of four that night) spotted Officer Seltenreich and his vehicle, they took off running into the woods.

Officer Seltenreich jumped into action, first securing their truck, which was filled with stolen equipment. Then, he had an important, split second decision to make: try to catch up with them and track them down on foot, or call for backup.

Giving chase is, in many ways, an alluring option, Officer Seltenreich explained. But that’s not what he did not that night. Instead, he made a better choice.

“All cops want to go out and catch the bad guys,” he said. “Your first instinct is to chase them.”

But Officer Seltenreich knew he not only was unlikely to catch them at that point, but, more importantly, tearing after them through the woods could have compromised the ability of a K-9 dog to track them. So he returned to his vehicle, and requested the K-9 unit from Riverhead along with other backup. His smart thinking allowed the dog to track the suspects to an apartment complex, where officers were able to question people there, which ultimately led to arrests that closed the case, resulting in the recovery of a large quantity of stolen goods.

Officer Seltenreich’s quick thinking that night was just one example of the exemplary police work he did over the course of the year, and it did not go unnoticed by his peers. Officer Seltenreich was recently named the Officer of the Year for the Quogue Village Police Department.

Officer Seltenreich, a 27-year-old graduate of Westhampton Beach High School who grew up in East Quogue, followed a somewhat unofficial family tradition by both becoming a Quogue Village Police Officer and winning the Officer of the Year award. His father, Ed Seltenreich, is a retired member of that force who also won the award during his tenure, and Officer Seltenreich’s brother-in-law, William (Alex) Gladding, has also won the award as well.

Quogue Village Police Chief Christopher Isola said Officer Seltenreich was an easy choice for the award this year, both for his daily work ethic and his actions at several incidents, including the work that led to the arrest of the burglary suspects. Officer Seltenreich saved two lives in 2020, administering Narcan to a heroin overdose victim who had stopped breathing, and stopping the bleeding on a critical patient who was in shock due to blood loss. The latter incident began when Officer Seltenreich and another officer responded to a 911 hang-up call. The majority of 911 hangups prove to be false alarms, or an accidental dialing. In this instance, no one answered the front door when they knocked, so they went around the back and entered the house, where they found an elderly man who had fallen in the bathroom and lost a significant amount of blood. He was in and out of consciousness, and while his partner remained with the victim, Officer Seltenreich ran to the police car and retrieved the EMT bag, working on the man to stop the bleeding until the paramedics arrived and took over.

Officer Seltenreich has proven himself as an exemplary officer in a short time. He joined the department in 2016, graduating from the police academy a year earlier, the same year that his father retired. He remembers being given his father’s gun and shield at that time, a passing of the torch, so to speak. He was just 21 years old, but carried with him wisdom and worldliness beyond his years, after serving four years in the U.S. Army. Just one month after graduating high school, Officer Seltenreich left for basic training, and joined the 82nd Airborne Division, First Battalion, 508th Infantry, serving in a five-man unit as an infantry scout in a reconnaissance platoon, a job he described as “being the eyes and ears for the battalion.”

He spent eight months in Afghanistan on his first deployment, in 2012, and spent a year there again on a second deployment in 2014.

When Officer Seltenreich first joined the Army, as a young and eager teenager, he thought he’d be a “lifer.” But his perspective changed after that second deployment.

“I wanted a bit more of a normal family life, and I wanted to stop missing out on things,” he said, pointing out that he had to meet his sister’s child for the first time over Facetime.

He also admitted that the deployments took an emotional toll as well. He lost several close friends during that time — SPC Joseph Riley, SSG Matthew Sitton, and 1SG Russell Bell. Mr. Riley was killed just six days before Officer Seltenreich was due to come home. He wears a bracelet with all of their names on it, and the dates they died.

“I was just tired,” Officer Seltenreich said of how he felt when that second tour of duty was over.

Because his father and other family members had been police officers, going into law enforcement seemed like a natural fit for Officer Seltenreich. He joked that if he’d chosen to be a firefighter instead, he wouldn’t have been allowed to sit at the family table for Thanksgiving. Joining the police force also represented a chance to replicate what he’d loved about being in the Army.

“It’s a struggle when you come back from combat, if you don’t have something you feel like you’re a part of,” he said. “The guys I work with now, they’re my best friends, and it really is a brotherhood, so it’s similar.”

The lifestyle is, of course, more conducive to having a family, something Officer Seltenreich said he hopes he can do with his wife, Farrand Seltenreich.

Officer Seltenreich said he was honored to receive the award, and admitted that the fact that his father and brother-in-law have also won it made it a point of pride, but he was humble in expressing his thoughts about it.

“I kind of felt uneasy about it, like I didn’t deserve it,” he said. “I don’t need any kind of special praise for just doing my job. You’re going to deal with bad people and with good people; that’s just what the job is.”

Chief Isola had high praise for Officer Seltenreich, who he has known since Officer Seltenreich was born. He said he was “ecstatic” when he heard that Officer Seltenreich wanted to become a police officer after his military service concluded.

“He’s a perfect fit for the job,” Chief Isola said. “He is calm, patient, compassionate, and very capable when called into action.”

Of course, no one is prouder than his parents, Ed and Jen Seltenreich, who said they were filled with pride at what their son has achieved, but also were not necessarily surprised.

“Ronan has always been extraordinary and has always made us proud,” Ms. Seltenreich said. “He’s never picked the easy way. He’s always done things the hard way. He never would have picked an easy profession, but he’s always done well and exceeded our expectations, and I see him continuing to do that.”

Ms. Seltenreich said she’s particularly glad to see her son doing that good work in the community he grew up in and where they still live.

“The fact that he’s in Quogue and not Afghanistan is a huge improvement. We’re incredibly grateful for that,” she continued. “I know he felt very passionate about going into the Army and being a soldier, but this gives him an opportunity to serve close to home.”