Summer 07
Vol. 12 No. 3

Sgt. Roy Ferguson and his staff have investigated every cadet who entered the police academy for the past 15 years, and a great deal more who haven’t.

Story and photos by Dave Schafer

As a child, Roy Ferguson’s hope was to one day wear a tie and dress shirt to a business he’d helped build. As an adult, Sgt. Ferguson wears a tie and dress shirt to a police department he’s helping to build.

For the past 15 years, Ferguson and his recruiting unit have investigated every officer who entered the police academy.

“We’re really molding and shaping the department,” Ferguson says while ricocheting between phone calls and officers at his door asking questions. A man calls to see if he’s been accepted to academy Class 191, which starts in a week. “Your application is on the chief’s desk,” Ferguson tells him.

He’d just checked on the guy’s application and 25 others. Next week’s class has 46 cadets, and the department wants at least 70.

Ferguson, who joined the department in 1974, knows whom to call to get information and how to nudge a superior officer for approval. More importantly, he knows how to do so subtly.

Rejection
Yellow post-it notes cling to the calendar that covers most of his wooden desk. His 12-foot by 16-foot office is gray-walled with green carpet and a free-standing dry eraser board listing recruiting events and officers assigned to each one. Ferguson is down for an appearance on KROI FM 92.1 next Wednesday. Stacks of three-inch-thick, rubber-banded folders hold down a side desk, and Officer Paul Singleton is standing in the doorway.

Singleton is having trouble with a man who submitted two applications with different information about his drug history. The man won’t explain and can’t understand why he was rejected.

Recruits’ applications can be terminated for many reasons. A felony or class A misdemeanor conviction, a class B misdemeanor conviction in the past 10 years, or more than two moving vehicle violations in the past 18 months are automatic rejections. Past drug use, deep debt, and failure to pass a physical or the psychological evaluation are also grounds for an application’s termination.

In a recent civil service examination, 617 of 621 exam takers passed. But only about one in 10 will make it through the academy, Ferguson says.

That rejection can be tough. Unlike Ferguson, who joined the department because a friend of his liked working for HPD, many of these applicants have spent their lives dreaming about being a police officer.

“We shatter their dreams,” he says. “We have to be sensitive to their feelings. We don’t want them walking out of here hanging their heads.”

Ferguson tells Singleton to tell the man that they think he’s a good person, but they can’t overlook his dishonesty.

“That’s what I told him, but he doesn’t want to hear it from me,” Singleton says.

So Ferguson, 6 foot 3 inches tall, goes to the interview room and tells the man the same thing. This time, he accepts it.

Recruits can appeal the termination by writing a letter to the HPD human resources captain. They get a hearing within 30 days.

Acceptance
Recruits start by taking the exam. If they pass, they fill out an application, have a preliminary interview, and take an agility and a polygraph test. If they pass those, the recruit’s folder goes to Ferguson, who assigns it to one of his officers. They run a criminal and employment background check before hitting the streets to talk to the recruit’s neighbors and former employers. Besides verifying the facts on the application, they’re also getting a feel for the person’s attitude.

If that investigation reveals something that disqualifies the recruit, the officer writes a letter of termination. If the recruit is clean, the officer writes an investigative report with his findings. Ferguson examines each folder, 10 to 12 a day, checking the grammar and structure and making sure all the information is there.

Then he signs it and sends it to the lieutenant, who is the third in a chain of approvals that ends with Chief Harold Hurtt.

Because the next class starts so soon, they’re in a rush. That’s nothing new, Ferguson says, but they can’t take short cuts. That could have serious consequences for their job, the force and the community.

An e-mail arrives from Hurtt’s office approving 25 of the 26 recruits. The 26th was rejected because his neighbors said he was overbearing, and once he’d once given insufficient notice when quitting a job.

Ferguson left homicide after 10 years to get away from gore and death. Here he still sees death, but it’s the death of a dream.

But, for 25 others, he’ll help give life to their dream.

“It’s real rewarding,” he says. “It’s a great career.”

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