NYC is already short recruits. The starting salary is surprisingly low.
If the UN wanted instructors, they’d do better to go after some of the retired guys or work a deal to send foreign recruits through the academy.
I don’t even know if the skill set would transfer to another culture. Truthfully, the whole idea just sounds screwy to me. But what do I know?
You probably heard this, but for those who haven’t:
http://www.govtech.net/magazine/story.php?id=104818
College Point, Queens, to be Location of new NYPD Police Academy
April 6, 2007 News Release
Story Art
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly announced Thursday the selection of the NYPD Tow Pound, located in the College Point section of Queens, as the site of the new police academy. A site selection committee reviewed eight locations and concluded that the Tow Pound is best suited for this use. The Tow Pound will allow for a modern complex that will consolidate in one campus facilities for civilians, recruits and active police officers that are currently spread out across the city.
“All the successes our city has achieved are built on a solid foundation of public safety,” said Bloomberg. “As we invest in our city’s future, we must also strengthen this foundation. Today, we’re taking an important step towards that goal with the selection of a site for a new 21st Century Police Academy, which will train police officers to meet the challenges of tomorrow to protect our city in an ever-changing and complex world.”
The NYPD currently conducts training in numerous facilities scattered throughout the New York. The main facility, the Police Academy, located in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park neighborhood, is over 40 years old and is too small and outdated to meet the needs of today’s department. It was intended for a department half of the size of the current force. A primary benefit of a new facility will be the consolidation of all NYPD training facilities at one location, creating a police training campus. Currently the Firearms and Tactics Section, where all firearms training is conducted, is located at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx, while the driver training field where the Emergency Vehicle Operations Course is taught is far away at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn.
“The police department is not the agency it was a mere five years ago, never mind 43 years ago — when the current police academy was constructed,” said Kelly. “Since that time we have expanded in both size and mission to include new Counter Terrorism and Intelligence programs, expanded community outreach and greater focus on quality of life. The new police academy will provide what our police officers and all New Yorkers deserve: the most advanced law enforcement training facility anywhere in the world.”
Once it is designed and constructed, the new police academy will feature instruction space, support and administration buildings, a field house, indoor shooting ranges, a tactical village, housing facility, driver training fields, K-9 environments, parking, a vehicle maintenance facility and a utility plant. A cost estimate has not been developed for the new Academy project but the capital plan in the mayor’s upcoming executive budget will allocate $1 billion for the project. The Department of Design and Construction will oversee the project and the city expects to break ground on the new Police Academy campus by the end of 2009.
I’m thinking that the UN wants to get as much use out of that $1 billion in US taxpayer money as they can, without having to actually provide any benefit to the US taxpayer. Also, wouldn’t be surprised if the NYPD unions are pushing for it as you said.
The only exception I can think of is the sergeant who heads the SWAT team....still going after 35+ years: an Army reserve Master Sergeant who was wounded in Vietnam, stalked the desert in the 1991 Iraq war, and cleaned the streets of Fallujah in the first year of the current war....busting into houses full of bad guys and spraying lead. My hero. A guy like him would absolutely kick ass. But he would eat light bulbs and castrate himself before he worked for the indecisive, perfumed commanders in the UN. A bunch of peace keepers like that...and they might actually solve something. Can't have that! [Anything I ever learned on the job that was worthwhile , I learned from him.] Old-timers who retired without rank are usually no-nonsense, practical thinkers. They would never do for the UN's purposes. They are un-trainable. :^)