Editor’s note: This story is part of a series called Shielded From Consequence, looking at the decertification of law enforcement officers in New York. The series is produced in partnership with the USA TODAY Network-New York and Syracuse University. You can read the first story in the series h ere. In November of last year, Ryan Zarnowski’s public career as a peace officer appeared to have ended.  Internal documents show mistakes and discipline marked his only year as a jail deputy at the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office: He failed to complete trainings; superiors said he had “little to no regard for what is happening around [his] unit” and he gave special treatment to an incarcerated woman who leveled against him an unsubstantiated accusation that he raped her.    Zarnowski’s supervisors regularly lampooned his performance with the sheriff’s office, writing that he was “easily manipulated;” that he “only seemed to be slightly aware of the problem” even after they counseled him and that he was “blatantly choosing” not to do his job properly.  “There are no more excuses,” one counseling memo said, “you are a trained Officer and must conduct yourself as such.”   The sheriff’s office fired Zarnowski on Nov. 3.   It’s not the first time he was fired for allegations of incompetence. Syracuse University’s Department of Public Safety in 2021 fired Zarnowski after he worked at SU for 17 years. The university found Zarnowski’s transgressions egregious enough to try a newfangled approach to stopping Zarnowski from becoming a peace officer again: revoking his training certifications, or decertification.  It didn’t stop his trail of misconduct.  An investigation by the USA TODAY Network, Syracuse University and Central Current found that the decertification process, enacted in 2016 in New York as one of the state’s strongest discipline tools against wayward officers, has failed to keep police officers around the state from donning the badge again.   The New York State Legislature voted in 2021 to approve the Professional Policing Act, enshrining a ban on decertified police officers returning to full-blown police jobs and thereby strengthening decertification’s power — but legislators didn’t apply the same ban to peace officers.   Peace officers, who have fewer powers than police officers and often have jobs with a more limited scope, can currently return to work as peace officers even if they are decertified. If a peace officer is decertified, they must complete state mandated training within the first year of being hired by a new employer.   Furthermore, police officers decertified between 2016 and 2021 could return to police jobs at the time after regaining their certifications — many are still working in those jobs today.   Because the statute does not currently apply to peace officers, any changes would require new legislation, according to the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services, the state agency tasked with oversight of the decertification process in New York.   Zarnowski’s career mimics what experts have come to call a “wandering officer,” a term for law enforcement officers who are fired from one police department and find work at another — the exact kind of behavior the PPA of 2021 was meant to eradicate.   In 2025, New York lawmakers introduced the Wandering Officers Act, to prohibit previously fired police officers, or those who resigned while at risk of being fired either in or outside of New York, from working at new departments in the state. But even if this legislation passes, peace officers like Zarnowski will remain out of the law’s jurisdiction and free to find re-employment with minimal consequences. Versions of this bill have been introduced in the multiple legislative sessions since 2021, and the current act is pending in a Senate committee.  Sen. Cordell Cleare and Assemblymember Phil Ramos are sponsors of the 2025 legislation. Neither returned multiple requests for comment.    Carlton T. Mayers, a police reform expert and attorney, said wandering officers who are decertified and rehired are likely to re-engage in misconduct.   “They’re able to engage in misconduct without any accountability, without anybody monitoring them,” Mayers said.  A long career marked by missteps ends in decertification, firing  Zarnowski’s supervisors reprimanded him for 16 incidents of misconduct over the span of 17 years at SU, according to letters filed by Syracuse University’s DPS to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS).  Syracuse University records show the public safety department initially fired Zarnowski in April 2021, but later changed his termination to an unpaid suspension, citing three incidents in their reasoning for suspending Zarnowski: He lost or misplaced key evidence in an ongoing investigation and failed to complete an investigation report; failed to take proper care of equipment in a DPS vehicle and failed to report for a scheduled shift.  Before being suspended, Zarnowski told a student to flush marijuana down the toilet instead of repossessing and filing the drugs into evidence; failed to report a robbery; forgot to wear his uniform and played a drinking game with underage students.   Despite disciplining Zarnowski multiple times, DPS entered into a Last Chance Agreement with him in June 2021, granting him permission to continue working on a 36-month unpaid probationary period in a demoted position.   Soon after, Zarnowski failed to activate his body camera while responding to an incident, resulting in his official termination in July. He was decertified in August, according to state records.  Zarnowski sued DCJS and DPS in October 2021, claiming his past employer had inaccurately reported aspects of his misconduct and the statute under which he was fired.   He submitted his grievances to the court, writing notes in the margins of a document detailing his disciplinary history. Zarnowski often argued that his version of events was not being considered by the state agency and the court, and that certain facts had been “left out” or “inflated.”  In response to his failure to report to work, he said, “happens with many officers… Simply forgot to write it down. Some are very abusive with it, why am I any different?”   He also argued that the incident resulting in his firing was not his fault: “my bodycam for this call was deleted/erased.”   Typically, documents relating to a public safety officer’s misconduct at a private university misconduct would not be public. But because Zarnowski sued DCJS and later requested a hearing with the state agency to correct inaccuracies in his disciplinary record, SU was forced to send his disciplinary history to the state agency. USA TODAY Network-New York, Syracuse University and Central Current obtained these records through a FOIL.  The judge’s final decision determined that the public safety department’s reporting of Zarnowski’s misconduct history should be reevaluated by DCJS, but that his firing and decertification was valid. Following the lawsuit, the state agency also determined that his misconduct was correctly reported, and kept his name in the decertification database.   “Officers retain applicable due process rights under local, state, and contractual frameworks, including disciplinary proceedings and hearings, which occur at the agency level,” Cagwin of DCJS wrote.  The USA Today Network and Central Current visited Zarnowski’s house, which he had not been living in since a fire caused damage to the home, according to a notice on the front door. Reporters reached out to lawyers and called phone numbers listed in Zarnowski’s 2021 appeal case documents, contacted his previous and current employers, emailed him multiple times and sent messages on LinkedIn, ultimately failing to reach Zarnowski for comment.   DPS and Syracuse University both declined to comment on Zarnowski’s case.   In an interview with the USA TODAY Network, DCJS said their verification process purely focuses on confirming the name of the officer, dates and the reason for decertification. Agencies are not required to share records on the underlying case, which leaves DCJS and the USA TODAY Network without key details about exactly why officers across New York were decertified.  Law enforcement agencies report decertification to the state through a dedicated software system, Kirstan Conley, DCJS’ deputy director of public information, wrote in a statement to the USA TODAY Network. This information is then reviewed and checked before being aggregated into Excel files and published on the agency’s website. Once verified and confirmed, the information is sent to a national database, Conley said.  DCJS does not have broad independent authority to investigate or overturn employer-reported decertification decisions, according to the agency. DCJS may only address material inaccuracies through an established review process, and registry data is maintained as reported by employers.  Zarnowski’s career continued. So did his misconduct  Zarnowski started working as a corrections officer at the “max housing unit” in Oswego County in December 2024, beginning a year-long probationary period during which he was supposed to complete state-mandated basic training required to become a full-time peace officer again.  Within three months of starting at the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office, Zarnowski was assigned 18 training courses, of which he fully completed two: an initial pistol course for peace officers and a basic course for correction officers — both finished in Spring 2025. Those were the only two required for him to regain his certification, according to DCJS.   Among the trainings he left unfinished were sexual assault trauma-informed training, domestic incident report training, de-escalation training, understanding and responding to child abuse, DCJS use of force training and inmate classification training, according a training history report obtained by USA TODAY Network-New York, Syracuse University and Central Current.  Lt. Geoffrey Beresford of the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office said the agency completed a background investigation prior to Zarnowski’s hiring, as is required by the Professional Policing Act. The investigation included testimony from prior employers like Syracuse University, as well as polygraph and psychological tests, he said.    he Oswego County Sheriff’s Office at 39 Churchill Road in Oswego on April 20, 2026. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current Conley, of DCJS, said that police agencies must check for removal for cause and decertification of prospective officers using the Central State Registry for Police Officers and Peace Officers, a state database, and the National Decertification Index as part of the background checking process.   However, the agency said it does not verify its publicly available state database to make sure it is up to date and factually correct. The database has not been updated since April 15, 2025. DCJS cleared the sheriff’s office’s hiring of Zarnowski, Beresford said, and they were aware of his decertification at the time of his hiring.   “They explained to us that he could be recertified as a peace officer but not a police officer,” Beresford said.  Aaron Cagwin, director of public information for DCJS, said in a statement to USA TODAY Network that DCJS does not clear, approve or authorize the hiring of police or peace officers.  “Hiring decisions are made by the employer, in this case the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office, subject to applicable laws, rules, and collective bargaining agreements,” Cagwin wrote in the statement. “In this case, DCJS notified the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office that Ryan Zarnowski had previously been reported by Syracuse University as a removal for cause, which resulted in the revocation of his basic training certification. DCJS also posted that decertification information to the state decertification list and the National Decertification Index.”  Cagwin added that, after receiving that notification from DCJS, the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office chose to retain Zarnowski as a correction officer.   “Under state law, he was required to complete the Basic Course for Correction Officers within 12 months of appointment, which DCJS records show he completed on May 2, 2025,” Cagwin wrote.   Zarnowski, according to his training report, appears to have left 16 training courses uncompleted at the time of his firing from the Oswego County Sheriff’s office on Nov. 3, the same day a reporter spoke to Beresford.   Julie Bell, director of health and human resources at Oswego County, said the official cause for removal was “unsuccessful probation.”   How reliable is NY’s decertification database?  While Zarnowski’s disciplinary history at several past law enforcement employers appears to be well-documented, his full employment history is more murky.  A work history provided by the state through a public records request lists one of Zarnowski’s former employers as the Onondaga County Parks Office, though staffers at the agency could not find any record of his employment.   The gap in records reflects a broader issue of the maintenance of decertification and employment records.   Police and peace officers’ switches between agencies are not always properly reported, experts said.    “Records released by DCJS in response to a FOIL represent what was reported to, and received by, our agency,” Conley said. She referred reporters back to Onondaga County Parks for more clarity on Zarnowski’s potential employment there.   Experts, however, believe it is the responsibility of DCJS to make sure its registry is clear.   “At the end of the day, I put all of this on DCJS, OK? Because this is their responsibility, and any kind of discrepancies, any kind of lack of transparency, that’s on them to correct that,” Mayers said.  Anthony O’Rourke,  a professor at the University at Buffalo School of Law, said mandatory reporting requirements depend on compliance from law enforcement agencies, which could make information more difficult to maintain.  “So, the question is, what level of oversight and incentive do these agencies have to fulfill their mandatory obligations?” O’Rourke said.  DCJS notifies a prospective law enforcement employer in writing if they attempt to register an officer whose certification has been invalidated, Conley said. Law enforcement agencies are required to review DCJS records and the National Decertification Index as part of their background investigations. DCJS can also provide aggregate information on decertified officers who were later appointed by another agency.  When asked about wandering officers and other decertification loopholes, DCJS emphasized that it can only act within the authority given by statute, which as it stands allows for permanent decertification of police officers but not peace officers.  Zarnowski appears to have moved on. A LinkedIn profile that matches much of his work history, including his time at Syracuse University’s Department of Public Safety, has been updated with a new job: security at Trinity Health and St. Joseph’s Health Hospital.   When a reporter called St. Joseph’s to attempt to reach to Zarnowski, Zarnowski’s supervisor, Thomas Wentworth, confirmed he worked there.  He told the reporter that St. Joseph’s Health Hospital would handle verifying Zarnowski’s required training for his security position “in [their] own time.”  He did not say whether he knew of Zarnowski’s disciplinary history at DPS and the sheriff’s office.   Zarnowski’s move to private security is not uncommon. Mayers, the policing expert, said security officers are less beholden to the requirements of police officers.   “If you work in private security,” Mayers said, “you’re not held to taxpayers or to a city government.”    This story is part of a series called Shielded From Consequence, looking at the decertification of law enforcement officers in New York. The series is produced in partnership with Syracuse University and Central Current, a Syracuse nonprofit newsroom.   The post A Syracuse University DPS officer decertified after misconduct was hired again and again  appeared first on Central Current. ...read more read less