A year after he was transferred and disciplined for letting dozens of prospective cops enter the police academy even though they failed their psychological exam or background check, an NYPD supervisor is getting promoted, the Daily News has learned.
Deputy Inspector Terrell Anderson on Friday will be promoted to deputy chief, a discretionary bump that seemed unlikely when NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch in May 2025 transferred him to the Housing Bureau. That move came after it was learned that as head of the Candidate Assessment Division he had greenlit the careers of about 80 NYPD applicants who had failed the exam or background check in 2023 or 2024.
Chris Monahan, the head of the Captains Endowment Association, the union representing Anderson, said at the time that Anderson had the authority under state guidelines to make the the decisions he made regarding the psychological exams. He also said Anderson was running the division the way prior NYPD leadership had directed him to.
NYPD officials nonetheless quickly moved to get rid of 31 officers who they felt were wrongly hired as a result of Anderson’s decisions.
But the Police Benevolent Association filed a lawsuit and won a temporary restraining order. Last December, all 31 officers were reinstated as the result of an agreement reached between the city and the Police Benevolent Association.
Anderson after his transfer was disciplined, the NYPD said in an email this week, then later named executive officer, second in command, for Brooklyn North. The department also said that “discipline doesn’t necessarily mean someone cannot be promoted again in the future.”
Anderson, a 22-year veteran, did not respond to a request for comment this week.
“He’s very competent,” Monahan said this week. “He was doing his job the way they asked him to The new administration came in and didn’t want it done that way.”
A police source said Anderson, who is Black, had in the past raised concerns about the psychological exam, which some describe as racially biased. A second source, however, said Anderson had told internal investigators there was pressure to approve of more applicants to help boost class sizes at the academy.
It wasn’t clear, however, if Anderson had ever notified Internal Affairs, before the scandal broke, about feeling pressured to approve applicants who had failed their exam or background check.