A former NYPD officer says he was tuned back twice in his efforts to rejoin the department, once because of administrative hassles during the COVID pandemic and the second time because the city told him he was too old.
An age discrimination lawsuit filed by Richard Ernyey against the city in April in state Supreme Court in Manhattan said the NYPD’s policy of not hiring anyone who applies when they are 35 or older “is arbitrary and irrational on its face,” as officers can stay on the force until they turn 63.
“People I worked with thought I was nuts trying to come back,” Ernyey, now 39 and working as an armed guard at a hospital, told the Daily News. “But the fact that I could be the person that somebody looks to when it’s the worst time of their life so I can help them and can actually do something good — to me that’s one of the biggest things in the world.
“That’s why I became a cop — and that’s why I want to become a cop again because when I was a cop I felt self-worth,” he added. “I know that sounds corny but it’s true.”
Ernyey joined the NYPD in 2013, spent most of his time assigned to the 113th Precinct in Queens, then resigned amid the panedmic in August 2020 as he, his wife and their two kids were planning to relocate to Georgia, where they have family. He planned to join the Peachtree City Police Department.
But when those plans fell apart — there were issues with buying a new home and Peachtree City wanted him to start sooner than he planned — Ernyey applied in early 2021 to rejoin the NYPD.
It was, as required by city rules, within a year of his resignation, but the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, the agency responsible for hiring city workers, told him all such personnel moves had been paused because of the pandemic, according to the suit.
Ernyey said he thought that was “a little strange.” but since the normal way of doing things had been set aside during the pandemic he took the city at its word and tried again in six months, as instructed.
Again, he was told of the pandemic pause, he said, so he took the advice of a friend on the force and wrote a letter in 2022 to then-Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell.
In response, the department’s Candidate Assessment Division told him the one-year window had passed — “a deadline that expired solely because of the defendant city’s own refusal to process his timely request,” according to the lawsuit.
He started over at that point, applying to the NYPD as if he had never been with the force.
Again, according to the lawsuit, he was denied, this time because he was already 35 when he applied. New applicants can start the process up until the day before they turn 35.
Now — his security job paying the bills but leaving him unfulfilled — he has turned to the courts.
“They thought I would go away,” Ernyey said. “But I know I can still do the job.”
John Scola, Ernyey’s lawyer, said age is like gender and race — factors that cannot be disqualifying so long as one meets the other requirements, including physical fitness.
“They can’t say that age wasn’t a factor in this decision,” Scola said. “It’s clearly the main factor. That violates city human rights law. We’re hoping that after this lawsuit the NYPD will get rid of the age requirement for police officers.
“If it’s based on some arbitrary age number then its discriminatory.”
The NYPD and the city’s Law Department would not answer questions about the lawsuit.