Yonkers cop charged with DWI weeks after graduation from police academy

A Yonkers probationary police officer still in field training was arrested earlier this month and charged with driving while intoxicated.

Shannon McAuley, 28, pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor at her arraignment in Croton-on-Hudson Village Court on Wednesday. She was suspended without pay the next day until Aug. 2, according to a General Order memo issued by the police department.

She was off duty when she was pulled over by a state trooper on northbound Route 9 for allegedly making an unsafe lane change at 3:14 am on July 5, a few hours after her birthday, according to a court document. McAuley had graduated from the Westchester Police Academy just five weeks earlier.

Her lawyer, Andrew Quinn, declined to comment.

Because McAuley refused to take a breathalyzer test, her license was suspended for 15 days when she was arraigned pending a refusal hearing at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Detective Sgt. Frank DiDomizio, a Yonkers police spokesman, said McAuley was placed on modified duty following her arrest and an internal affairs investigation began. The job suspension was triggered by the loss of her driver's license, he said, because she cannot be a police officer if she cannot drive.

McAuley was among nine new hires sworn in by the Yonkers Police Department in January and then sent to the police academy in Valhalla. Her father is a retired Yonkers police lieutenant.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Yonkers cop charged with DWI weeks after graduation from police academy