Expert: Jack Toomey - 4/11/2010

Question
QUESTION: Dear Sir,

I am a 27 year old minority from the upstate new york area. The dept I have applied has roughly 84 officers none of which are a minority ( non- caucasian). I own a succesful business in which alot of the administrative police officers frequent (chief and captains). Our dept has 23 officer eligible for retirement with 10 gaurunteed to retire by Jan 11. The chief has asked several times to apply and now I have signed up for the civil service exam which takes place in a month. Several "important" community members and other officials are really pulling for me to get in. There exclamations are as long as do well on the civil service exam I am a for sure bet. The thing that they dont know is I have a OTH about seven years ago from the Navy. I was in a bad relationship had a young child and a chemically imbalanced and drug dependent ex wife. This all culminated in me making a huge decision to lie to my superiors to stay ashore to try and take care of my family. I was found guilty in NJP of lying to a superior officer at which time I asked to be released from active duty because I did not feel that I would satisfactorily be able to complete my enlistment. I was released as a RE04 (non rehireable) oth prior servicemember. I have since gone on to complete college open a business (very succesful) and teach 45 second chance and at risk adult learners,culinary arts, here locally in my community. This has gained me some public notoriety along with recognition and letters of reccomendation from alot of major players here in the community ( city commissioner, county executives, community action agencies etc.) Based on this bit of info do you think I might have a chance to be a police officer.

And can I do it without my color being the biggest need, meaning if I were caucasian and the situation were the same. I want to be equal to the other officers.

Thanks  very much

ANSWER: This is rather unique because most of the questions that I get in this category come from people who don't already have a department picked out.  In other words they have no clue what department they are going to apply for but they have something in their background that the fear is going to disqualify them.

I am assuming that this department does their own background checks, oral interviews, etc?  Not sure that they are big enough to have a polygraph operator so maybe they farm that out to the state police or someone else.

Since you know the chief it might be a good idea if you spoke to him about this before you even apply.  That way if its no big deal to them then you can get it out of the way.  But if it is a big deal then you can save yourself the embarrassment of being rejected.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: They do do their own background interviews but do not do polygraph interviews. This department does chief interviews and oral boards along with psych and medical evals. I have done alot of good since my separation with the service and have done quite a bit of communtiy work. Would these things normally bar a candidate ( I know every department is different) or could some of the current work I have done help to counter balance this. I do not want to only be on the force because of my color (not what the chief wants but what the "community" wants) Our chief is one of the most un biased people I have ever met.

Answer
I only can speak for MY department.  Your background would be an automatic disqualifer but this is a department of almost 1500 officers with hiring pools of thousands of applicants so they can afford to weed out people quickly.

I am sticking by my prior advice because five years in the future you don't want this to come up when you least expect it to.

I wish you well but talk to the chief first.