N.Y.P.D. Moves to Fire Dozens of Officers Who Failed Psychological Exams

More than 30 New York City police officers and recruits who should have been disqualified before entering the Police Department’s training academy were given notice Thursday that they would be fired, a move that was stalled by a judge hours later.

The Police Department has been reviewing the cases of 80 officers who failed psychological exams, but had those results overridden by a commander in charge of hiring at the time, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the review.

On Thursday, the department confirmed in a statement that 31 of the police officers should not have been hired for a host of reasons that went beyond the exams. The officers had lied about their criminal records, their use of illegal drugs, whether they had been fired from a previous job and whether they had driven with a suspended license, the police said. The fate of the other officers who failed the exams was unclear.

“Following an internal investigation, the N.Y.P.D. recently identified officers who joined the department in the past two years despite receiving final notices of disqualification during the application process, which is a violation of the law,” the police said in a statement.

“The department was not legally allowed to hire these individuals and was forced to inform them that they could no longer continue as members of the N.Y.P.D.,” the statement said.

One of the fired officers had been convicted four times for motor vehicle violations, including driving 100 miles per hour in a 50 m.p.h. zone and striking a pedestrian, according to the law enforcement official.