Crime & Safety

Police, Co-workers Remember Det. Sgt. Reecks

Mourners poured into the DeFriest-Gratten funeral home Tuesday evening to honor a leader on the force.

Jeff Walker can still remember the first time he met Det. Sgt. Robert Reecks. It was an early March of 1995, Walker said, when he was a rookie cop bringing in his first DWI arrest to the station.

Walker smiled as he remembered how Reecks helped him process his first DWI that early morning.

"He was a leader," Walker, now a Det. Sgt. and a 17-year police veteran, said. "He was someone I personally looked up to."

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Dozens of police, family, and friends came to the DeFriest-Gratten funeral home in Mattituck Tuesday evening to honor Reecks, the former commander of the Suffolk County Police Department Hate Crimes Unit and Riverhead resident who was killed in a car accident Saturday morning.

Police cars lined the street outside the funeral home as waves of uniformed police and fire officials and civilians came to remember the fallen officer. Several fire trucks and police vans pulled into the parking lot, filled with mourners from the force who came to pay their respects.

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Mourners praised Reecks, 57, of Riverhead, as a helpful, dedicated cop and a mentor to those under his command.

"He's a man of integrity, an upstanding individual, very good with the community," Officer Bard Simpson said outside the funeral home. "Every time you saw him he had a smile on his face."

Sandra Townsend, a board member on the Eastern Suffolk BOCES, said she worked with Reecks when he helped partner with the NAACP to reduce hate crimes.

"He's always been supportive, helpful and instructive. He was always there to lend a hand," Townsend said.

Townsend said Reecks leaves a legacy of tolerance, having bridged the community and police efforts to crack down on racially motivated crimes, especially those against Hispanics.

"His death really leaves a hole in the community between the police and the community," Townsend said. "It's an amazing loss."


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