Suffolk keeps police officers on the force for years despite determining their misconduct warrants departure, costing taxpayers millions of dollars, a Newsday investigation found. The county has negotiated at least seven settlements since 2011 that let disciplined officers stay employed just long enough to reach 20 years of service and full pension eligibility, at salaries as high as $270,000, records show. The agreements — negotiated by the police commissioner, county labor relations director and the influential officers' union — raise questions that county officials refused to answer: why people they wanted gone are allowed to remain on patrol; allowed to keep collecting overtime and allowed to increase their final pension payments. "This is an alarming practice that nearly completely defeats the purpose of the discipline in the first place," said Josh Parker, deputy director of policy at New York University’s Policing Project. Link in bio for more of the findings from Newsday. (...