FWPD - An Equal Opportunity Employer: Autumn 1998

The dealers were using my home as a front for their drug activities while I was away, and they would often pack up and leave as I was coming home. There was trash strewn everywhere, sometimes my porch furniture was moved around, and my neighbors told me that they were even hiding drugs in my mailbox. Yet if I called FWPD about this, they would act as though the problem was solved because it wasn’t occurring at that moment. Forget the fact that the same thing would happen again as I went to work the next morning. These problems could not be solved with a simple call to the anonymous and seemingly ignorant “desk sergeant,” many of the patrol officers here seemed too stressed out to carry on a civil conversation, and I was unable to establish meaningful communication with any higher ranking officers at FWPD.

All I wanted was a little assistance from FWPD. I didn’t expect them to watch my property 24/7, but I wanted the officers who patrol this neighborhood to know that mine was not a drug house. And I wanted them to know that when they see a group of people standing in my yard or setting on my porch, those people are probably drug dealers. I simply wanted the higher ranking officers to pass this information on to the patrol officers.

Monitoring and arguing with the dealers, picking up their trash, being harassed by some of the patrol officers, and being ignored by the bureaucrats was wearing on me. I often felt like this was a battle I was losing. So, as the saying goes, I decided “If you can’t beat them, join them.” And no, I was not considering becoming a drug dealer.

I don’t recall when the notice first appeared in the paper, but I believe it was in October of 1998 that I went to South Side High School to take a written examination. There were several hundred other applicants, all vying to fill a few open positions as a patrol officer with the FWPD. The written exam was a piece of cake. It was long, but it was multiple choice questions, mostly math, reading comprehension, and other rudimentary mental skills. I suppose that if they provide the definition of burglary, theft and robbery to you, then ask you to define these terms (while the definitions are still in front of you) and you fail, then you probably shouldn’t be a cop!

The next step was the physical testing at the Police training station on St. Mary’s Ave. The first section was a four point obstacle course set up in the gymnasium. The first obstacle was a five foot high wall that you had to scale. Then there were a set of low lying bars that you had to slide or crawl under without knocking them off the cones they rested on. I’m thinking they were about 18” off the ground and there was a series of them stretching for 6-8’. I think the third obstacle was a distance jump, and I really can’t recall how far it was. I am really vague on my recollection of the fourth obstacle. It might have been running through tires on the floor, or walking a balance beam. But I’m thinking the balance beam came later when we went upstairs. I believe we had to run this course three or four times in continuous sequence. I don’t recall exactly how they scored on this. I know you got points taken off if you knocked off any of the bars, and I think failure to scale the wall was an automatic disqualifier.

After that, we ran up and down the stairs for a while, then we went upstairs for the remainder of the test. We had to drag a sack filled with weights (I don’t recall how much) back and forth along the hallway. Several times you had to come to a complete stop and start fresh again. That made a big difference. Each new drag would burn the legs (especially the calves) a little more, and by the time we stopped, I was a bit sore. I think we also walked back and forth on a balance beam a few times for the last test. I would say that dragging the weights was the most trying of the tests for me, and running the stairs was probably the second hardest part. Overall, it seemed fairly easy to me, so I guess it wasn’t that difficult.

I don’t remember the exact order of the different trials they put us through, but I think the next step was an interview before a panel of three FWPD officers. This was probably the most intimidating part of the test. You’re setting in a dingy looking room of a building that looked on the verge of being condemned, and facing three uniformed officers. They all look at you in unison, with expressionless faces, and ask “Why should we let you be a police officer.” I swear, at one point I almost blurted out “Okay, I admit it, I’m guilty!” At least they weren’t shining a light in my eyes.

After that was the lie detector test. I had never sat in a police interrogation room or had a lie detector test administered to me before. It was a little uncomfortable, mainly because the circumstances seemed designed to make you feel like you were a criminal. But I suppose that can be good for a couple reasons. First, the intimidation probably makes it more difficult for you to fool the machine, but it’s probably also good for a (future) cop to understand things from the perspective of the criminal (I mean the accused.)

The last test was a psychological examination which took place at IPFW in may of 1999. They gave us no preparation for this, not even a rough idea of how long it would take. I had expected an actual personal interview for this. As there were only about sixty applicants left at this stage, that seemed feasible. Instead, it was another multiple choice test. I would estimate we were there about six hours, although we were allowed a couple breaks.

Many of you have probably seen these tests before. They ask “have you ever stolen anything?” Well, you’re applying to be a cop, so you can’t admit you’re a thief. But almost everybody has probably stolen something, sometime in their life, so if you answer no, they’ll think you’re a liar. Then they ask if you’ve ever smoked pot, kicked a cat, lied to your mother, and a lot of other silly questions. Some are straight forward, and others are very ambiguous. Many people worry so much about how they think they are expected to answer the questions, instead of just answering them, that this itself causes a lot of frustration.

I really don’t think they even look at how you answer the questions. The first thing they probably check is to see if you left too many questions unanswered. This means you were giving it too much thought, which means you were trying to manipulate the test rather than give honest answers. But if you answer too quickly, it perhaps shows you are reckless and lack the ability to think deliberatively. So timing is everything. You can have a few unanswered questions at the end or you can finish a little before the time is up, and you’re okay. But too much of either and you’re out. Of course, the other disqualifier is when someone jumps up and runs from the room screaming.

So, from this final group of about sixty candidates, I think we were told that twenty-three would be selected. We were also told that if we had made it this far, then we all would make good cops. They encouraged those who didn’t make the cut to re-apply in the future. During the application process, I had talked with many of the other candidates. Some were trying out for the second or even third time. Many of them said they’d heard that most people don’t make it on their first try.

Some were attempting to cross over from other police agencies, which I expect gave them a strong advantage in certain areas of the selection process. I understand the need to interview and give some of the tests to everyone, but I was actually surprised when I found out that a current Allen County Officer has to take the full battery of physical and written tests that a civilian does in order to join FWPD. There’s certainly no harm in doing this, I just figured they’d say “Oh, since you’re already a cop, let’s just ask you a couple quick questions before we give you your new badge.”

Although I had encountered several FWPD officers during this lengthy process, it was always in a very formal manner. There really wasn’t any chance to say to one of them “By the way, I’m having this problem in my neighborhood and I wonder if you could tell me what I should do about it.” I kept wondering when somebody would take note of my home address on the application, and I was expecting one of the officers to call me aside and say “You live in crack-town and you want to be a cop? You’ve got to be kidding.”

As I wrote this post, I remembered one other part of the application process. Officer Hay came to my home to conduct a personal interview. I don’t remember how much advance notice I had for this, but it certainly wasn’t enough time to conceal the fact that the outside of my house was dilapidated and the interior was under construction. And of course, there was no way to change the fact that I was living in crack-town. In retrospect, I’m actually quite surprised that Officer Hay was able to maintain his composure during the interview. Here I was, the only white guy around, living in a drug infested neighborhood, and owning a home that probably looked like it could be a crack house itself, and I wanted to be a cop. I would really love to be able to read his report on that interview someday. “Applicant must either be a drug dealer himself, or just a damned idiot for not realizing that a blue uniform down here will probably get him killed. - Recommend no pass.”



The Few, The Proud, the FWPD:

If you can handle the written test, the physical test, and successfully pass before the police review panel they might eventually give you a gun to play with. You should probably have a couple stiff drinks before taking the psychological test to help you relax though. Just don’t admit that you’re drunk, but don’t deny it either - damn, now I need another drink!