Was their age a positive or negative in your experience? Were there any issues/concerns with ‘re conditioning’ per se their way of thinking and processing the LE world from their previous life and career experiences?
What’s the oldest rookie you’ve had in your department?
r/AskLE
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I’m currently about to start academy. I’ll be 42 this month. We have a guy that is 54, also in my academy. We are the two oldest for sure. Everyone else is 20s
We’ve had multiple people start this career at 40. They’re usually retired military. One of them was a TV reporter though who was doing a story on recruiting and decided he would be able to contribute more as an officer than a reporter. We always joke with him that he’s just deep undercover for an exposé.
We had a guy i believe was 46 when he graduated. He was solid, awesome cop and did some great things. Age was definitely a positive, i always liked working with older dudes than the young ego monsters, life experience goes a long way in this profession.
Pull a guy over and grab his license, and then he decides to run.
Young guy: “How dare he run! I need to chase him!”
Old guy: “I’ll just meet him at home”
Early 60s. He had retired from a prior career owning a car dealership and decided to get into LE.
At the academy where I taught, it was mostly 20-something, but each class would also have several 30- and 40-somethings (often retired military), and it wasn’t uncommon to have one or two 50- or 60-somethings every year or so.
40, he became officer of the year at 41 with the most arrests in a year (40+) and is now a detective. One of the best partners I’ve had. He had a tough time during FTO and wanted to leave but stuck it through.
Had a guy in my academy who was close to 70 when he started. He worked for about 6-8 yrs and then retired.
We had a 50 yr old retired surgeon/physicians assistant.
57…during taser check in briefing he didn’t remove the cartridge and shot confetti straight into the ceiling panel. He also let the inward opening security gate hit his patrol vehicle leaving one of the stations…he didn’t make it through field training.
I was 50 and almost the oldest, two were older than me. One was 70 and going to work for a small town PD
How common is an 18 or 19 year old recruit?
we hired a 25 year NYPD vet. We also had a Marine Base in our county and an Army Base very close to us so we hired many who were coming out to include a lot of 20 year vets. But the 25 year NYPD is the oldest I recall.
51 year old guy going through an academy right now, he’s doing great and looks very likely to pass. Genuinely my biggest concerns with anyone over 50 is just their physical capacity. Although if they work out and look after themselves, then I don’t think they’re a liability.
We had one in their 60’s.
No longer a LEO, but shortly after I left they hired a 48 year old former Bobby from the UK (department is in middle America). Definitely not a rookie, but definitely had to relearn a lot of things.
Guy in my academy was 59. He worked for UPS for like 25 years and retired
He didn’t last long though at the department.
I’m 51. There’s another guy in my class who is 57.
55 year old female. She lasted a bit over a year. Complete waste of a position.
This makes me feel a lot better deciding to try out for the local pd at age 38. I thought I was too old and the ship sailed.
Unfortunately, he had the mind and driving habits of a decently healthy 80 year old… He spent 48 weeks in field training and I had him for two 2 week parts of that. Back then field training was 12 weeks and at most you’d get two extensions before getting the boot. Idk why they kept him.
Good guy, understood the job, but information processing speed just wasn’t there. I did my part and documented the f out of everything. Even said in one observation report that he was a liability and was bound to cause a crash. In the first week of his shadowing phase with another FTO he ran a red light, causing some injury to the other driver. After that, they ended his field training, let him keep his certification, and assigned him to the metal detector at city hall. He did an excellent job there.
He made it through the academy, he did not make it off training.
Yes, he was a trainwreck.
I think he was a DEI hire gone wrong. By that I mean his age. He never should have hired.
Several 40+ guys in my federal academy outperformed the 20-30 year olds (even in physical fitness). I do believe there is a certain age where it would be tough, but as long as you can put in the work most will do well. Some folks get into this as a second career.