Former Prosecutor Is Among Police Recruits
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
With a degree from one of the country’s premier law schools and experience as a prosecutor in Westchester Country, Alissa Gonzalez plans to become a top sleuth in the city’s police department.
“At this point I would love to become a detective,” Ms. Gonzalez, who is among the 1,028 police department recruits set to begin training at the police academy next week, said. “Homicides one day and something totally different the next.”
Ms. Gonzalez, 30, attended a swearing-in ceremony yesterday at Queens College, where Commissioner Raymond Kelly welcomed all the department’s new recruits, who hail from 50 countries, including China, Bangladesh, and El Salvador.
After graduating from the New York University School of Law in 2002, Ms. Gonzalez began a four-year stint as an assistant district attorney in Westchester. She left her position in 2006 to enter private practice and soon realized she no longer wanted to be a lawyer, she said.
“I want to be out on the street working with DAs,” she said.
Despite more than 1,000 new recruits, the police department is more than 1,000 officers short of its budgeted head count.
