Norwalk loses police recruit just before training begins

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Norwalk loses police recruit just before training begins

By John Nickerson
Staff Writer

August 27, 2007

NORWALK - One of the four recruits hired two weeks ago as a probationary police officer will not begin his academy training this week and has been "separated from service," Chief Harry Rilling said.

Rilling said Friday he would not detail the reasons for Shawn Torpey's dismissal because of confidentiality laws. But police department sources said surgery for a knee injury will prevent Torpey from starting academy training.

Losing a recruit is a blow to efforts to alleviate a shortage of officers.

Rilling said earlier this summer that he would begin hiring from other departments in an effort to shortcut the one-year training period for cadets.

"It is a minor setback. It means we will have one less person than anticipated in the academy," Rilling said of Torpey. "These things happen, but it is something you have to deal with."

Torpey, a 33-year-old Danbury resident, was hired Aug. 9 with John Bell, 38, of Fairfield; Christopher Wasilewski, 23, of Bridgeport; and Brendan Collins, 22, of Norwalk. They are to begin training this week at the Police Officer Standards and Training Council Police Academy in Meriden.

Rilling said Torpey may be able to get into the academy in October, when the police department has another four seats in the class. That will be reviewed as recruits are chosen to fill the seats, Rilling said.

It is too late to bring anyone else in from the hiring list to fill Torpey's seat, the chief said. The officers must go through two weeks of orientation at the police department before they go to the academy, and the Board of Police Commissioners must hire the probationary recruits, Rilling said.

Last week, recruit James Wright, 32, graduated after 24 weeks of training at the academy, Rilling said. Wright will begin a minimum of 10 weeks of field training in the Norwalk department before he can be certified as a police officer, training officer Anthony Santo said.