Lieutenant Kenneth Jackson and Detective Richard Pedone, representing Garden City Police Commissioner Ernest Cipullo, attended the annual Automobile Club of New York Community Traffic Awards Ceremony, held at the Westchester Country Club.

The Garden City Police Department and the Village of Garden City received the Automobile Club of America's Platinum Award in recognition of their excellence in providing a broad spectrum of education, enforcement and engineering.

The Platinum Award is a national award given by a panel of Automobile Club of America officials. The Village of Garden City was one of only four municipalities within New York State to receive the honor. In addition, the Village of Garden City was the only municipality from Long Island to receive this award.

With this award, the AAA recognizes the department's outstanding programs that are designed to address specific traffic safety issues in the areas of traffic enforcement, safety belt usage, truck safety, parking enforcement, pedestrian safety, school bus safety, bicycle safety and DWI enforcement.

"The Garden City Police Department is continually striving to improve pedestrian and vehicular safety in the Village of Garden City," Cipullo said. "To help reach this goal, the department has scheduled DWI blanket patrols as well as random truck, seatbelt, bus, crosswalk and speed inspections."