More than 30 New York City police officers and recruits who should have been disqualified before entering the Police Department’s training academy were given notice Thursday that they would be fired, a move that was stalled by a judge hours later.
The Police Department has been reviewing the cases of 80 officers who failed psychological exams, but had those results overridden by a commander in charge of hiring at the time, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the review.
On Thursday, the department confirmed in a statement that 31 of the police officers should not have been hired for a host of reasons that went beyond the exams. The officers had lied about their criminal records, their use of illegal drugs, whether they had been fired from a previous job and whether they had driven with a suspended license, the police said. The fate of the other officers who failed the exams was unclear.
“Following an internal investigation, the N.Y.P.D. recently identified officers who joined the department in the past two years despite receiving final notices of disqualification during the application process, which is a violation of the law,” the police said in a statement.
“The department was not legally allowed to hire these individuals and was forced to inform them that they could no longer continue as members of the N.Y.P.D.,” the statement said.
One of the fired officers had been convicted four times for motor vehicle violations, including driving 100 miles per hour in a 50 m.p.h. zone and striking a pedestrian, according to the law enforcement official.
During the internal investigation, the department said it had found that the officers received “final notices of disqualification” during the hiring process. Those notices should have legally prevented them from joining the department, but they were still hired, a violation of state law.
The officers and recruits were given 24 hours to resign or be fire, the Police Benevolent Association, which represents about 22,000 officers, said. But on Thursday evening the union said that it had won a temporary restraining order in State Supreme Court in Manhattan blocking the move for now. A hearing was set for Tuesday.
“We are grateful for the pause in these unjust firings, but this is only the first step,” Patrick Hendry, the union’s president, said in a statement. “These police officers did nothing wrong. It is not their fault that their hiring was tainted by a rogue inspector and arbitrary process.”
The officers discovered they would be let go two months after officials learned about Inspector Terrell Anderson’s decision to override the negative psychological reports. At the time, he was the commander of the Candidate Assessment Division.
Inspector Anderson allowed the officers to enter the Police Academy even though they should have been disqualified based on their reports. Inspector Anderson was moved to the department’s housing unit in May.
He declined to comment on Thursday, but his union, the Captains Endowment Association, defended him. “Inspector Anderson had the authority under previous administrations to hire candidates. He was under tremendous pressure to fill NYPD recruit classes,” Chris Monahan, the president of the union, said in a statement. “He had a careful review process and didn’t place candidates with diagnosed mental health issues in any classes.”
Critics have said that the examinations are unfair to candidates of color and candidates who admit that they went to counseling when they were younger or even children.
Officers have had concerns about the exams for decades, said Patrick Gordon, a lieutenant and the president of the Guardians Association, a group for Black officers. He recalled one Black candidate who was deemed “paranoid” after saying that he felt closely watched when walking through certain neighborhoods.
The process is “broken,” Lieutenant Gordon said. “It’s subjective. It’s discretionary. We really need this fixed.”
Lawyers and psychologists who have helped candidates appeal the results of the exam said that many potential recruits have failed not because of serious mental disorders but for more arbitrary reasons.
Candidates who admitted drinking a lot in college or going to a psychologist have been disqualified, said Mark Lerner, a psychologist who conducts evaluations for candidates appealing their disqualifications.
“There are countless people that are wrongfully disqualified from law enforcement agencies that really shouldn’t have been disqualified,” he said.
Under New York State’s guidelines for psychological exams, the commander in charge of the Candidate Assessment Division can make the final determination about whether a recruit can move on to the academy, the union has said.
Inspector Anderson, who joined the Police Department in 2004, was transferred to the division in 2022 and became known for his eagerness to recruit more officers of color, according to law enforcement officials who know him.
Maria Cramer is a Times reporter covering the New York Police Department and crime in the city and surrounding areas.
Chelsia Rose Marcius is a criminal justice reporter for The Times, covering the New York Police Department.
The post N.Y.P.D. Moves to Fire Dozens of Officers Who Failed Psychological Exams appeared first on New York Times.
