By Fran Spielman and Frank Main
The Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO — The Chicago Police Department is striking a compromise after running into opposition to a plan to raise its minimum application age to 25.
Instead of forcing aspiring police officers to be at least 25 to take the police entrance exam Dec. 11, the revised policy allows them to take the test at 21. But they still can’t enter the police academy until they’re 25.
That will allow people such as Jason Quaglia, 23, to take the test. When he turns 25, he must wait for his name to be randomly drawn from the list of qualified applicants before he can enter the academy as a recruit.
Quaglia, who created a Facebook page called “The Chicago Police Minimum Age Will Destroy My Career,” said he was happy about the compromise.
“Excellent,” Quaglia said. “The most important part is to let us on the list because who knows when there is going to be another test.”
The Dec. 11 test will be the first one in four years. Non-military applicants must have completed 60 semester hours of college.
Wednesday’s change in policy also will affect another group: the 29 men and woman in the department’s cadet program.
Police Supt. Jody Weis noted that applicants can remain on the hiring list for anywhere from “six months to five years” before entering the police academy.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported this week that City Council Police Committee Chairman Anthony Beale (9th) was joining forces with Fraternal Order of Police President Mark Donahue to try to block the Police Department from raising the minimum application age for police recruits to 25.
On Wednesday, Beale called the revised policy a “step in the right to direction” and called off plans to hold City Council hearings on the issue.
Donahue agreed it’s a “fair compromise — particularly for the people involved in the cadet program.”
Copyright 2010 Sun-Times Media, LLC