Ruger serves as police sergeant and 18-year Army veteran
It’s been a roller coaster ride over the first 12 years of Robert Ruger’s law enforcement career, but the new Cornwall-on-Hudson Police Department sergeant hopes the village will be his final destination to finish out the rest of his profession. Ruger was sworn in on Aug. 2
“I think I found a fantastic home,” Ruger said. “I actually love working here. I like working for the chief, the mayor’s office, and all my coworkers are great. I couldn’t ask for a better home. I always heard good things about [the village]. I had the opportunity to come here and couldn’t think of a better place.”
Ruger graduated from SUNY Delhi with an Associates Degree in humanities and has spent the last 18 years in the U.S. Army. working his way up to attain the rank of 1st Sergeant.
“I always liked the idea of helping people. My father was in the Army, my brother was in the Army. I knew when I was seven-years-old stealing Army clothes [from my father] to run around to play hide and seek in the woods that it was going to be a thing I was going to do in the future.”
Ruger recalls his father bringing home trucks from the Army base to work on at home. One Memorial Day or Independence Day, Ruger had the opportunity to pull the chord on a cannon.
“It wasn’t a secret that’s what I was going to end up doing in my life.”
Over the course of his career, Ruger has been deployed four times: Iraq in 2008, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 2012 and 2016, and Kabul, Afghanistan in 2018. The latter two came shortly after the birth of two of his three children, forcing him to miss the first year of his sons’ lives.
“It was terrible, but it’s what I do. Being in the Army and making sacrifices to keep people safe, it’s always been in my blood. I took a vow to protect people who can’t project themselves. That means I have to make sacrifices. My wife is pretty tough and the kids are resilient.”
That desire to serve and protect carried over into Ruger’s career when he decided, in 2011, to go to the police academy, but it had been a dream since he was a teenager.
“I was a soldier first and I enjoyed helping people. Law enforcement is a selfless service type of a job. To do a job where you potentially risk your life for those who are unable to do so for themselves is not something that’s for everybody. There is a saying that 99 percent of this country cannot and will not do what I do. For a while I didn’t understand what that meant. I didn’t fully grasp it. I take a lot of pride in the fact that when people run away from a fight, I run into it. If somebody needs help and for whatever reason is unable to help themselves – and it doesn’t always have to be a crime, it could easily be a fire, a natural disaster, medical, many different things -we’re the ones going in to help rather than run away from it.”
Ruger’s first job was a part-time position with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. As a present, he was sworn in on Christmas Eve in 2011, but didn’t start as a deputy sheriff until the beginning of the following year. He served the department for three years, but for one of those he was in Cuba.
In 2015, Ruger applied for an officer’s position with the Highland Falls Police Department and attained the rank of sergeant when he took the exam five years later.
“Being a leader is something I believe I’m good at for the simple fact I always try to understand where everybody comes from and take the time to stop and think and explore all avenues before making decisions. For leadership in the Army, that’s been beneficial when you take the time to understand the big picture. A big part of my job is to ensure other officers or soldiers understand what their job is, what their guidelines are, what the standard operating procedures are, what they’re supposed to do to operate, how they operate, and to make sure they’re well trained and adequately equipped mentally and physically in order to perform their job to keep themselves and other people safe.”
Unfortunately, taking the job meant working the C-Line shift from 2 to 10 p.m. and losing valuable time with his family.
Ruger spent eight years with the department before deciding it was time for a change in venue.
Doing so meant taking a demotion back to patrol officer when he accepted a position with the Harriman Police Department. Ruger wasn’t disappointed, however.
“I firmly believe in order to be a good leader you must first be a good follower. To start back over as an officer, it wasn’t a big issue just because no matter what I had done in my life, I didn’t do anything to prove myself in that particular agency. To start over again it wasn’t that big of a deal. I had every intention of proving my worth there just like I had everywhere else.”
Ruger started in February and found the situation to be slightly more favorable as officers are required to rotate shifts every couple of months, however, he started off with the C-Line shift.
In July, Ruger received a call from Cornwall-on-Hudson Police Chief Steven Dixon and was offered a job to succeed outgoing Sgt. John Peña.
“I had always heard good things about Chief Dixon, the Village of Cornwall-on-Hudson, and I really looked forward to the opportunity to serve in an outstanding community. I had heard it was a beautiful place, a tight-knit community. For the police department, I heard they were professional. It was someplace I could see myself working and fitting in.”
The promotion allowed Ruger to move from the C-Line to the B-Line shift from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“The fact I can say good night to my kids every night is worth its weight in gold. It’s something I was never used to. A couple nights a week I wouldn’t even see my kids. I would go to work, they would go to school. I would come home and they’d be asleep. When they went to school, I was already sleeping. Days would pass and I literally never saw my children. Now that will never happen again.”
As an officer, one of Ruger’s most memorable calls took place while serving in Highland Falls. It was a missing child case in which he spent four days searching for, and finally locating, two teens who ran away together.
“[The parents] were a nervous wreck and rightfully so. They asked me to help them find their babies. I worked diligently. I gave them my personal cell phone number, something people don’t normally do, and told them if they needed me, to reach out. I didn’t want to give them anything less than 100 percent.”
As a sergeant, Ruger will be responsible for helping the chief ensure the department runs smoothly and that every officer knows what their job is and serves in a professional capacity.
“I don’t see any problems with that. I’m not walking into a police department that needs to be fixed. I’m walking into a well-oiled machine that’s courteous, respectful, well-managed, and well-run. I don’t foresee challenges or hurdles in my job. I’m here to help ensure we maintain the level of professionalism that we’ve already established.”