NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch invoked the memory of slain Det. Didarul Islam on Wednesday as she swore in nearly 1,000 new graduates of the police academy in a ceremony at Madison Square Garden.
The latest graduating class totals 965 officers, said by the NYPD to be the largest class since 2016, at a time when the department has been struggling to get new officers to replace a persistently high rate of attrition.
Tisch noted the bittersweet moment for the graduation, coming as it did just over a week after Didarul lost in his life in the Manhattan mass shooting in a Park Avenue which took a total of four lives, as well as that of suspect Shane Tamura, who killed himself.
“Detective Islam embodied the kind of strength this department is built on. He protected this city with conviction,” told the new officers. “You didn’t know him, but the role you’ve chosen—the role he gave everything to—is yours now.”
The latest class includes 262 officers who are foreign born from 41 countries, including 44 from Bangladesh, the country of origin for Didarul. Officials said the new officers speak a total of 39 different languages.
“This Academy class will provide some welcome relief for our overworked officers on the street, but the NYPD staffing crisis is far from over,” Police Benevolent Association president Patrick Hendry said in a statement to Newsday.
The new officers will likely be placed in new assignments immediately. Some will see duty in the special zones set up in high crime areas around the city during the summer.
The NYPD has for the past few years struggling to get new recruits to fill the ranks left by those who retire or resign for other jobs. To help increase the pool of candidates, Tisch earlier reduced the college credit requirement from 60 to 24. The reduced credit standard had made a large number of previously excluded candidates eligible to reapply, officials noted.
While the new officers are a welcome addition, police officials and other law enforcement experts note that given the rate of attrition the NYPD basically treads water in terms of the number of officers. The latest NYPD numbers show there to be just about 33,700 officers, including the latest group of graduates.
“We are still short thousands of cops and hiring is not keeping up with attrition,” Hendry said.