On a Saturday morning, this group of police officers doesn’t spend their time relaxing at home. They head out to a distant corner of Brooklyn, looking for some one-on-one action at the Starrett City Boxing Club.

They are the “Fighting Finest,” a group of more than 40 police officers of varying ranks from across the boroughs with a love of boxing. Only about 20 of them are active fighters, but almost all of the officers spend some time with gloves strapped to their wrists.

Tonight the team will fight the Los Angeles Police and Sheriff’s Department boxing teams, who flew in especially for the occasion.

Last week the New York team sent nine boxers to London for a round with the Bobbies. The team lost 4-5, but head coach Dave Siev – a lieutenant in the gun control unit of the Organized Crime Bureau – is taking it in his stride.

“Hometown judges – what do you expect,” he said. “Besides, this is about camaraderie and diplomacy, not winning.”

The boxers raise money for travel by selling mugs and other merchandise, and they charge admission around $20 when they fight.

The boxing club where the team practices is hard to find under an apartment complex on a loop-drive outside of Canarsie. A beat-up sign is the only indication that boxing among fighters young and old is going on inside. The club has a slanted roof and moist yellow walls. By 1 p.m., with the boxers training at full speed and two sparring matches going on, the place gets foggy with sweat and swinging fists.

The team fights at an amateur level, but because they’re cops they get to travel the world to fight other cops. The Russians and Italians, Mr. Siev said, take the fighting a little too seriously. Those teams fight like they practice every day and have never done police work, he said.

As Lieutenant Ray Braine and Sergeant Bob Chang start sparring in the ring, their heads wrapped in protective gear, a voice calls out from the side.

“Don’t brawl, box,” the team’s honorary coach, Bobby Slayton, 67, said.

Mr. Slayton is wheelchair bound after he was shot six times in an attempted retaliatory murder on July 13, 1984. Mr. Slayton had been an advocate of cleaning up his crime-ridden building in Washington. When he tried to get some of the troublemakers thrown out of the building they came after him.

“I’m paralyzed below the waist, but I’ve got upper body strength,” he said. “People say I have a grip like a vise.”

He recovered six months later, but every day he went to court during the trial, six or so officers made sure he made it in safely – a gesture he has remembered ever since.

Mr. Slayton also helps coach the Fire Department’s boxing team. The biggest boxing match of the year brings the Finest up against the Bravest. The winners walk away with a year’s worth of bragging rights – a valuable possession in the bars frequented by police and firefighters.

An officer from the 105th Precinct in Queens, Julio Orozco, 30, said boxing keeps him in shape for his day-job. In the One-Oh-Five, as cops call the precinct, their job is primarily breaking up family disputes and chasing after car thieves.

“I grew up in a rough neighborhood in East New York,” he said. “That’s where I learned fist fighting. This is a tough job we do. It helps keep me alert, keep me in shape. I can challenge anything out there.”

The team fights tonight at 6 p.m. at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers.