For municipal police, it's the end of the line

Sergeant Karen Ahern had turned in her gun, her baton, and her riot gear. She saw no reason yesterday to don the navy uniform she had worn for 10 years as a Boston municipal police officer.

It no longer had any meaning.

Her last shift was to end at midnight yesterday , the same time the armed division of the Boston Municipal Police Department, a 25-year-old institution headquartered in Dorchester, would close. Ahern and about 30 other officers would be out of a job, while 33 of their colleagues would head to the Boston Police Department, which accepted them last month after they passed background checks and physical and psychological exams.

Yesterday, Ahern, dressed in jeans and sneakers, spent her shift turning in other officers' equipment to her managers and hugging colleagues as they left. Her time on the obstacle course in a physical agility test had been 13 seconds too slow.

"It's just a really gloomy day," she said.

The city's police department has been forced to absorb the officers after Mayor Thomas M. Menino ordered a merger with the municipal police as an economical way to supply the city with patrol officers. The human resources division of the Executive Office for Administration and Finance approved the transfer of the 33 officers, according to a Dec. 28 letter to the city's department of human resources.

The Boston Police Patrolmen's Association, which also opposes the merger on the basis that municipal officers were hired without taking the civil service test every Boston police officer has had to pass, plans to appeal that decision, a lawyer for the union said yesterday.

Joe Coppinger , a leader of the Boston Municipal Patrolmen's Association, said he would call on the state Civil Service Commission to transfer to the police department the 31 officers who were not accepted. Coppinger , who failed the psychological exam, said the background checks and tests administered were unfair and that the union has hired a lawyer to fight the city's decision.

He said the union plans to obtain the support of the city council and the public by telling community leaders that Boston streets will be less safe with 31 fewer armed police officers. Other union members vowed to fight Menino's decision.

"I'm ready for the long haul," said Patrolman Ric Alfred Jr. , who said he had been rejected because of a restraining order filed against him in 2003 that was later rescinded. "It's going to get nasty. It's going to get hot."

Dorothy Joyce , Menino's spokeswoman, defended the decision to merge.

"The city will be as safe," she said. "The duties that were done by the municipal police are now the responsibilities of the Boston police force. We did this as an effort to put more money into the Boston Police Department instead of sharing the resources."

She said those officers who failed the tests and background checks could reapply in April or take jobs as unarmed security officers in the city.

"There will be no one unemployed unless they choose to be," Joyce said.

But becoming an unarmed officer is unappealing because they make about $200 less than armed patrol officers, whose top weekly pay is $891 , said Coppinger , who was set to become president of the municipal officers' union at midnight. He said he would accept a security position because he needs health insurance.

"It's either that or collect unemployment," he said.

He said the union hired a psychologist who had evaluated the municipal officers who failed the Boston Police Department's psychological exam. The union psychologist determined that the officers are fit to serve, Coppinger said.

The physical agility test discriminated against older officers, he said.

"If the roles were reversed, half of the Boston Police Department wouldn't have made it to the Boston municipal department," he said.

Joyce said the municipal officers had months to prepare for the tests. "Boston police officers who go on leave for any type of injury have to retake the same type of physical examinations, including people who are older," she added.

She noted that the rejected municipal officers are at the top of hiring lists the state has sent out to other police departments. But Coppinger said they could be rejected again if they fail those departments' tests or background checks.

"You're guaranteed to go through the hiring process," he said, "but you're not guaranteed to get hired."

Ahern, 35, suggested other departments might stigmatize those who failed the city's criteria, saying: "Are other departments going to say, 'You didn't make it to Boston police. You think we're going to take you?' "

Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.