NYPD welcomes teens, young adults to winter internship program: ‘I was in that chair when I was your age’
The NYPওD’s winter interns got a primer from a former rookie at a recent welcome event at police headquarters in Manhattan.
“I was sitting in that chair when I was your age,” Chief of Department Jefferey Maddrey told about 70 teens and young adults who were at One Polic𝔉e Plaza Monday for the
“Three years later, four years later, I was a police officer,” the NYPD’s top uniformed cop said. “A very tough thing for me. I was 20 years old. I couldn’t walk into a store and buy a beer. But I was sitting on the corner with a gun in my bag, oftentimes telling people twice my age, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that, you have to calm down, you have to turn this way.’”
The program🎶 participants, who are between 16 and 21, will work in part-time paid positions with the department for $16 an hour until April.
“Think about it,” Maddrey said. “We got helicopter airplane pilots. We have accountants, we have electricians, we have lawyers, dog handlers, you name it.”
The department also has internships in building maintenance at headquarters and in the NYP☂D’s automotive shop.
The inter🎃ns ꦦmay also do filing or other clerical jobs, officials said.
The program seeks to foster good community relations and build personal relationship🐬s, officials said.
“In this program, we’ve had a lot of success with young people that might not — not so much not like the police, but just have never got to know a cop,” Alden Foster, NYPD deputy director for Youth Services and Community Engagement, said.
Yomaris Aguilera, a student at the Bronx Center for Science High School and Mathematics, is pretty sure at 16 that she doesn’t want to be a police officer, but she’s part of the program in hopes of furthering her dreams — and could change her mind in the future, she said.
“The opportunity to intern with the NYPD caught my eye, al🍰igning with my aspiration to become a therapist since entering h𓃲igh school,” she said.
”I anticipate that having NYPD internship on my resume will distinguish me in my future job search,” she said. “If I choose to continue with the NYPD, I am confident there will be a place for me.”
