The NYPD is hiring. 

For the next three weeks, the city is accepting applications for the June 15 police exam — the first in two years.

Police brass say they are reaching out to communities across the city encouraging applications, especially from those in communities of color.

What You Need To Know

  • Police Commissioner Dermot Shea announced Tuesday that the NYPD is kicking off a recruitment campaign to attract applicants for the upcoming police officer exam

  • The goal is to attract a diverse pool of candidates

  • Over the last seven years, the demographics of the NYPD have remained relatively the same
  • The nation’s largest police department Tuesday announced a three-week recruitment campaign designed to sign up applicants to take the next police exam in June

Second in command, Ben Tucker says he can relate to New Yorkers who are reluctant  to sign up.

"I didn’t like cops. I didn’t hate cops, but I didn’t like cops. I grew up in the 60s and so what I realized is I can make a difference if I am inside, if I join the PD then I can influence people who don’t think about young Black guys as people who can also do this job,” Tucker said.

Last month, Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed a sweeping police reform plan that calls for greater diversity in the NYPD. But Black police officers have fallen from 15.5% of the force when de Blasio took office in 2014 to 15% today.

Hispanics have increased from 26% seven years ago to 29% today, and Asian officers are up from 6.2% to 9% of the NYPD.

The decline in the percentage of Black officers does not surprise Leroy Hendricks, a decorated former cop and retired member of the NYPD Guardians Association, a fraternal organization of Black police officers.

“One of the things they need to do is make the communities feel like they are not the enemy,” Hendricks said.

Chief of Department Rodney Harrison announced a new initiative to mentor at risk youth in 20 neighborhoods with gang violence.

The goal is to improve police community relations and change the attitude of young people toward the NYPD so more consider policing as a career.

"I never had that growing up in Jamaica, Queens, but that is something — now that I am in this position — we can take advantage of some of the things. We can be better at and getting kids to possibly take the test and come on the police department,” Harrison said.

To encourage diversity in the NYPD, the mayor last week signed an executive order requiring at least one candidate from an “underrepresented” race to be interviewed for any open position in the department's higher ranks.