Sam Farina

Chief Samuel A. Farina, Jr. (ret.) earned his bachelor’s degree in criminology from Niagara University in 1988 and went on to earn a master’s degree at Niagara University in Criminal Justice Administration in 2004.  In addition, Chief Farina received an additional master’s degree in forensic psychology from Walden University in 2016. 

Farina began his law enforcement career in 1988 with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office as a deputy sheriff in Rochester, New York.  He rose through the ranks to achieve Police Commander with oversight of all administrative functions for the 1200-member full-service Sheriff’s Office.  In 2008, Chief Farina transferred to the Rochester Police Department as a Police Commander and was charged with oversight of the 781-member department’s special operations section.  In 2009, Chief Farina was promoted to the position of Deputy Chief of Operations for the RPD until retiring in 2011.  After living in North Carolina upon retirement and working as an administrative assistant to the police chiefs at the Durham Police Department and the Southern Pines Police Department, Farina returned to NY to take a position as the Police Chief with the Fairport Police Department.  After 7 years of service as the police chief, Farina took on his current position as the Director of School Security at the Fairport School District. 

In addition, to the above police administrative experience, Farina has been a certified police hostage negotiator since 2001.  Currently the founder and president of the New York Association of Hostage Negotiators, Chief Farina has been involved with the training of over 10,000 negotiators nationwide.  Farina is also a certified negotiator training with the Department of State’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program.  Farina has been a negotiation team commander, an incident commander and special teams’ commander with an experience of over 100 crisis events.