I realize there's been some pressure on these major blue city emergency services and first responders. I mean, sincerely - who in their right mind would want to be a cop in either city? Being a fireman is a dangerous job anytime and their funding and staffing is at the mercy of hostile city councils who have a million other things to spend money on first.
Public safety is somewhere down the list.
But when you combine financial pressures with woke policies and corruption, well, not only is an already stressed force weakened, but that very public safety is threatened because you are not insisting on and hiring the best with what you have available.
Two scandals are breaking now, in New York City and in Michelle Wu's Boston, that illustrate both sides of that coin.
In New York, police officers have graduated from the Police Academy and been serving on the NYPD force, who should never have been allowed to graduate in the first place.
There has been a pattern of averted eyes and shuffled records at the academy going on for a while. Some of it has even involved doing favors for disgraced former cops, but all of it has meant individuals who did not meet the minimum qualifications to be a New York City police officer were passed through the course anyway.
Back in May, the head of the academy's 'Candidate Assessment Division' was quietly shuffled out of that job to a billet in the Housing Division after an internal affairs investigation.
An NYPD inspector was quietly bumped from his police academy job for allegedly keeping dozens of recruits on board — even after they failed to meet the department’s mental health standards, law enforcement sources said.
Terrell Anderson, who led the NYPD’s “Candidate Assessment Division,” was transferred to the housing unit May 12 as part of an Internal Affairs Bureau probe into claims he allowed more than 70 candidates to stay at the police academy despite them failing psych requirements.
An NYPD spokesperson confirmed Thursday that Anderson was transferred and said the department does not comment on internal investigations.
More than 70 candidates had been allowed to remain at the police academy, including one at the special request of a former female NYPD Lt who had retired after tawdry sex for overtime scandal she was in the middle of broke out (With her $200K overtime, she made something like over $400K that year...as a cop).
It turns out her nephew had NYPD aspirations, and she had called Inspector Anderson to ask that he keep the lad there.
According to Anderson, he routinely received calls asking for similar favors about cadets who should have been booted.
...According to the sources, Anderson claimed he had gotten a call from Epps telling him to keep her young relative Emilio Andino at the academy, though he should have been disqualified.
Anderson claimed to investigators that various NYPD brass also pushed him to keep other non-qualified recruits on board, because the department was desperate to fill its depleted ranks, according to the sources.
As of this morning, the department has decided to require all the cadets in question who actually made it to the NYPD to either resign immediately or be fired.
Dozens of NYPD cops who failed to meet the department’s standards – including for mental health – are now being forced to resign, or else they will be fired from the Force, law enforcement sources revealed Thursday.
A total of 30 cops – hired between 2023 and 2024 under Inspector Terrell Anderson, who has since been transferred out of his role with the Police Academy – are being notified of the purge Thursday, according to the sources.
“They all got called down,” a police source told The Post. “They’re being told: ‘You didn’t meet the qualifications. You shouldn’t have been hired. You have 24 hours to resign or be fired.’”
Their service weapons have already been confiscated. Of course, the union is fighting, saying it's not their fault, but the article does say that every last one of them had been notified at the academy they were ineligible for one reason or another.
...During their application process, the recruits were issued notices of disqualification, which prohibits the NYPD from hiring them as a matter of state law, the sources said.
Some of the recruits in question allegedly lied about their previous convictions, multiple arrests and previous employment terminations, according to the sources.
The officers’ guns were removed over the past few days, the sources.
However, in the case of the sexy lieutenant's nephew, it seems that it would have been better had they ignored her call to begin with, as he wound up making sure he got himself booted.
...Among the troubled recruits allegedly kept on by Anderson was Emilio Andino, the nephew of ex-NYPD Lt. Quathisha Epps — the former department bigwig implicated in a tawdry sex-for-OT scandal, the sources said.
Andino, who was on probation, was previously fired after getting into a fight at the academy, according to the sources.
Anderson is still at the Housing Division but facing 'serious' departmental charges for allowing recruits with serious mental challenges to continue on in training. It remains to be seen how serious the charges will be when he starts dropping names about who called for what recruits.
In Boston, the city fire department has an inferior recruit issue as well, but it's due to a DEI-driven initiative that one can lay squarely on the woke mayor's desk.
And there was bonus money attached for the strength in diversity drive.
LEAKED: Mayor Wu gave her fire chief a $40K bonus tied to “diverse” cadet classes.
— Mass Daily News (@MassDailyNews) July 9, 2025
Now questions are surfacing if unfit recruits were quietly passed to meet the goal.
Read the contract at Mass Daily News:https://t.co/yY2H5XYusg
As money changes everything, the drive towards diversifying the Boston Fire Department didn't focus so much on maintaining and improving it. Its only concern was changing the color palette.
Standards do tend to slip when the emphasis is no longer on 'standards.'
Mayor Michelle Wu’s Boston Fire Cadet Program was launched as a flagship equity initiative. But behind the scenes, a very different narrative is taking shape — one marked by frustration, lowered standards, and quiet pressure to look the other way.
According to a source with direct knowledge of the program, cadets are being pushed through the fire academy even after failing fitness benchmarks, while instructors are discouraged from holding them accountable.
“Instructors are frustrated. The message from leadership is clear: cadets can’t be fired, even when they fail repeatedly,” the source told Mass Daily News. “Standards are being compromised, and morale is sinking fast.”
The source alleges that multiple cadets have failed “must-pass” fitness events — but instead of being dismissed, they were allowed to retake them during quiet weekend sessions and eventually passed.
“They couldn’t pass during the week, but somehow passed when no one else was around,” the source said.
Cadets are also reportedly being utilized for Mayor Wu's sketchier urban exercises when they should be in the program learning to be professional firefighters and saving lives.
LEAKED EMAILS: Mayor Wu’s office quietly deployed Boston Fire cadets to help relocate addicts from Mass & Cass to various neighborhoods across the city.
— Bostonians Against Mayor Wu (@AntiWuCoalition) July 1, 2025
They called it a “coordinated response.” No transparency. No input.
The crisis wasn’t supposed to be solved — it was spread pic.twitter.com/pLXbQOzXcN
As more word of this misuse and abuse of the Fire Cadet program began to leak out, the legitimate alarm was palpable.
...Critics say the consequences of this approach are not theoretical — they’re dangerous. Pushing underprepared cadets through the system could lead to fatal consequences on the job, where hesitation, exhaustion, or a missed step can cost lives.
A few days later? Voilá! An explanation appeared when someone leaked the Fire Chief's contract.
The Fire Commissioner gets a bonus for making his department more diversified. Not the more better trained and professional it is. The bonus is for the more colorful.
...The leaked 2024 contract shows Wu approved a $40,000 raise for Fire Commissioner Paul Burke, bringing his salary to $290,000. Unlike his 2022 agreement, which offered the bonus as a separate stipend, the new contract folds it into his base pay — tied directly to launching three cadet classes that improve the department’s racial and gender diversity.
How 'bout them DEI apples?
If your house is burning down?
Or if it's your 'fire fighting' kid who you thought had qualified, dies at the scene, and you had no clue they couldn't begin to carry the first hose, but the Cadet program passed them anyway.
...Veteran firefighters say the implications are severe. Firefighting isn’t a classroom exercise — it’s a job that demands speed, strength, and split-second decisions under pressure. Lowering standards, they warn, doesn’t just affect the academy — it could cost lives.
This isn’t about who someone is. It’s about whether they can drag 200 pounds of gear up a stairwell, stay focused in a smoke-filled room, and keep pushing when everything in their body wants to stop. That’s the difference between survival and tragedy — and if that’s not being tested properly, the public may already be at risk.
...Though the program was created to promote equity and access, insiders say the reality inside the academy tells a different story.
On Day 1, cadets were reportedly told they had earned their positions “as much if not more” than veteran firefighters — despite some showing up physically out of shape and unprepared, having only completed a two-year stint painting fences and mowing lawns.
“This isn’t about inclusion anymore,” the source said. “It’s about politics, payouts, and pretending everything’s fine. What happens when someone who couldn’t pass a basic drill is sent into a real fire?”
That 'what happens' question is the real kicker, isn't it?
Boston firemen and BOSTON residents are now being placed in serious jeopardy. allowing cadets on the fire department that can’t pass a fitness test. should someone lose their life. Wu, should charged with manslaughter. the BOSTON FIREMEN must challenge this issue in court.
— Maymay, Rachaell (@MaryAnneRachal1) July 9, 2025
The Fire Commissioner gets his bonus when he should get the boot.
Had he any integrity at all, he should have resigned in protest and flamed Wu from the very beginning.
I'd say 'for shame' but they'd have to know what it was first for it to mean anything.
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