A year later, Denver provided the applicant a job and a gun, records show. Three new officers had at least three crashes with the police cruisers they had been driving while working as officers in other cities, records show. Most were minor. While not in a police car, another new hire admitted to having been convicted for drunken driving. Critics say the types of people being hired as Denver police officers are reflective of a hiring system gone awry.
Proponents say it's reflective of society and the best they can do.
I'm sure they exist, but to find them in a population of 1.5 million is tough, and I won't be able to get them all to show up in one day. For some of them, it didn't end there. One officer said he smoked pot about 25 times in a 16-month period and bought it illegally three times, while another admitted to taking amphetamines and smoking marijuana in a U.S. Army barracks. But two of them also admitted to using steroids several times, another to cocaine as well as an exotic drug known as ecstasy, one to mushrooms and another to speed. All 30 filled out applications in 1998.