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Seven New Officers Hired, Takes Police to Full Strength

John VanLandingham
Connection Staff
March 2008

Seven new police officers are patrolling Emeryville bringing the police department to full strength after a more than four-year recruiting drive, Chief Ken James announced.

And two more are in the academy, expecting to come on board after some current officers retire this year or next, the chief said.

The seven, ranging in age from 21 to 40, are all new to law enforcement, although a couple of them previously were police explorer scouts and several put themselves through the police academy at their own expense, James said.

Because of the department’s rigorous hiring standards, perhaps as many as 2,500 applicants were considered in the hiring drive.

“We have been doing continuous testing for last four or five years, and getting the department to its full staff has been my number one priority for last two to three years. We probably have gone through 2,500 applicants in those years,” James said.

“On average, you lose about half your applicants during the written test and then probably half of the remainder during the medical and psychological tests. Then we check their history and that probably washes out all but one or two applicants,” he said.

Each new officer must pass an 18-month probationary period with the city during which he or she can be dismissed at will. “It’s not about the number of applicants, but the number of qualified applicants,” James added.

Yet, James and the city refused to lower any standards. The chief cited the misfortunes of other cities that lowered their standards in an attempt to fill the ranks quickly and ended up failing to perform thorough background and other checks to weed out the unfit. Those cities ended up either in court defending themselves against lawsuits alleging police misconduct or hiring people with criminal records.

“Several times the city council told me that it did not want me to relax our standards,” James said. “We want our residents to know that these new officers are capable of serving them.”

The seven new officers include:

• Warren Williams, 36, a Berkeley native, who previously worked in sales and technology.

• Anthony Ingles, 40, a reserve firefighter and paramedic in Hercules and Rodeo who decided if he was going to make impact it would be in law enforcement.

• Ryan Duff, 25, of Antioch, who has a political science degree from Cal State Hayward.

• Pablo Rojas, 23, who grew up in Concord always dreaming of being a police officer and who attended Los Medanos Community College in Pittsburg.

• Jason Thompson, 23, raised in the Fairfield area, a Marine Corps veteran and former police explorer cadet.

• Michele Kellner (CQ), 23, who grew up in the Hayward area, also a Marine Corps veteran. She enlisted after graduating from high school and has attended Chabot Community College.

·• Michael Pena, 21, a former police explorer who grew up in the Vacaville area and has an associate degree in science from Solano Community College.

James said the city provides financial incentives to encourage its officers to continue their college education.

John VanLandingham is a writer for The Emeryville Connection.

If you have a question or comment, please contact him at

ecocnews@gmail.com