The NYPD Exam
Three o'clock on Saturday, June 8, 250 of us gather at Midwood High School near Brooklyn College. Aspiring cops of varying levels of ambition, we're waiting to take the New York Police Dept. written exam, step one toward becoming a police officer. We stand or sit on the school steps, trying to enjoy a crisp day before they call us in to start the test.
A woman behind me is talking on her cellphone. I eavesdrop.
"No, I can't come over right now. I'm about to take the police exam," she says. I turn around to glance at her. She's beautiful, raven hair, olive skin, sharply dressed in a dark skirt-suit. Her friend is surprised that she's taking the test. After seeing her, I am too. She responds, "Why? Because I want to. I'm taking all the civil service exams. Next month I'm taking the corrections officer exam and last week I took the bus operators' exam."
The comely would-be cop/prison guard/bus driver isn't alone in her scattershot approach to civil service. A few minutes later a man wearing yellow wraparound sunglasses tells a group of us that he also signed up for a handful of tests. Reluctantly, he says, he took an exam for a position as a mental health orderly. He doesn't want the job. "A nurse friend of mine, she said some of the people are crazy. They'll smack you cold. They'll smack a woman. And you can't hit 'em back. You hit 'em back, you go to jail." The tone in his voice says, Don't that beat all?
The vast majority of people here are black or Hispanic; almost half are women. I count 10 white guys other than me, three Asians and one man who is either Indian or Pakistani. Given my preconceptions about racial imbalance in the NYPD, the tiny little liberal that sits on my left shoulder is pleased that this pool of applicants so mirrors the ethnic demographic of Brooklyn. Add a couple Hasidim, Poles and Russians and we'd be well on our way to a representative police force.
A nearby Puerto Rican kid comments on the fact that the city dropped the standard $35 test fee this time around. "They waived the fee because they need cops. They really need cops," he says. "I mean, they can't need cops so bad they'll take everyone?then you'd be seeing the Mexicans lining up out here," he laughs. "Yo, you ever notice how you never see no Mexican cops?"
Racial slurs aside, he's right. The city does need police officers. Thousands retired over the last several months, because an officer's pension is based on earnings during his last year of service, and the spike in overtime pay after 9/11 gave many veteran officers an irresistible retirement incentive. That drove the city in turn to try every recruitment trick in the book, except boosting starting salaries. The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association has said that this may only draw a large pool of unqualified applicants. They got the first part right: at least 32,000 signed up for this test citywide, the largest group of police applicants since 1986.
Meanwhile, if that Puerto Rican kid needs sensitivity training, the same could be said of at least one white beat cop assigned to the school for the day. At 3:35, five minutes after the test is set to begin, the crowd gets impatient and presses through the door. Two white patrolmen come out and explain that the morning session of the exam is still under way. We won't be admitted to the building until 4. One of the cops, making a poor attempt at connecting with us, says, "Oh well, you better get used to it. Hurry up and wait, that's what they always tell us. We get a call that says, 'Hurry up, there's a riot uptown.' We get up there and say, 'What? There's no riot here.' And they tell us, 'Never mind. Stand on this corner.'"