Police recruiting draws a surge in applicants

An unprecedented advertising blitz and some last-minute face-to-face persuasion produced a surge in the number of potential Boston police recruits. Officials say the department can now be more selective as it tries to diversify the ranks and overcome a series of corruption cases.

Of the 2,553 applicants who signed up to take the May 19 civil service exam, 735 are black and 386 are Hispanic.

Those proportions are similar to 2005, the last time the test was offered, when there were 1,345 applicants, including 392 black and 195 Hispanic candidates.

"I'm more than excited with the results," said Sergeant Detective Norman Hill , the recruiting commander. "It gives us a greater candidate pool and a more diverse candidate pool. . . . We're hoping that the quality of the candidates will increase."

In recent years, recruitment has lagged at the department, but this year's applicants total the most since 2001, when 3,792 people applied.

The department is still reeling from the arrest two weeks ago of veteran Officer Jose Ortiz , who federal authorities say used his badge to extort money on behalf of drug dealers.

Commissioner Edward F. Davis said it is critical for the Boston Police Department to attract the best candidates and thoroughly scrutinize their backgrounds.

"We were able to present the BPD as an organization that values diversity and community outreach," Davis said in an interview last week. "That was the intent of the campaign, and it was very helpful to us as we attracted new candidates. This bodes very well for the city in the future."

Davis, who started on the job in December, has pledged to put more officers on the street s as part of the department's community policing mission. As of late last month, there were 2,140 uniformed officers.

The department plans to add 70 officers -- transfers from other department -- in the coming months, using a state grant of at least $1.4 million that Governor Deval Patrick announced Thursday.

It also plans to add 140 officers from Police Academy classes who will graduate May 24 and later this year.

The candidates who pass the civil service exam this month will be ranked on their scores, whether they are military veterans, and whether they speak foreign languages. The department will select recruits from that list.

In February, the department launched a snazzy $100,000 marketing campaign, featuring ads that pictured 11 officers working with youths, taking crime-scene photos, and performing other duties.

The billboards and posters decorated bus shelters and buildings throughout the city, trumpeting the slogan, "Many Jobs, One Career, Boston's Future."

When the recruiting numbers had not increased markedly by late March, the department resorted to unusually bold tactics, including having uniformed officers camp out at South Bay Shopping Center for a day of spontaneous sales pitches to shoppers. The number of applicants more than doubled between late March and the sign-up deadline in late April.

Hill also attributed much of the increase to an initiative that paired selected community leaders with uniformed officers. The community leaders, dubbed recruiting ambassadors, let police recruiters use their e-mail lists to blast messages that promoted the May 19 civil service exam. Representatives from the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, Cape Verdean Community UNIDO , and local veterans' outreach organizations were among the ambassadors.

The ambassadors did more than just loan out their contact lists: They also offered guidance such as urging police officials to cover the city with billboards in foreign languages, such as Vietnamese, Portuguese, and Spanish.

"They did exceptional work," Davis said. " They were all over the city reaching out to minority candidates and other interested candidates who want to make policing their career."

Several community leaders praised the department for its effort to broaden the diversity of recruits. They said that by reaching out to more racially diverse applicants, the department ensures it will be able to hire more minority officers.

The Rev. Jeffrey Brown predicted the successful recruiting drive will go a long way toward improving the relationship between residents and police. Many believe that distrust has hurt the department's ability to solve crimes because witnesses will not cooperate.

Last year, the department arrested or identified suspects in only about 38 percent of 74 homicides and 23 percent of nonfatal shootings or assaults with guns.

"It is so important for the community to see police officers that are reflective of them," said Brown , director of the Boston TenPoint Coalition , a group of clergy and community leaders credited with helping control gang-fueled violence during the early 1990s. "And it makes a difference when a neighborhood resident is able to talk to a police officer that looks like them and may understand their neighborhood and where they're coming from. . . . [It's] a great step in the right direction toward bridging the gap."

Jorge Martinez, executive director of the Grove Hall nonprofit Project RIGHT , agreed.

"It shows the commissioner is really serious about community policing and putting officers on the ground in the neighborhoods who can be effective [and] who can relate to people," he said.

The department is now focused, Hill said, on understanding which recruiting strategies worked, so it can use them again. He is planning to insert a survey into the civil service exam materials to ask applicants what persuaded them to sign up.

In addition to the multimedia campaign and the shopping center recruiting drive, Hill said uniformed officers regularly walked through business districts with community leaders, handing out pamphlets. They also spoke at churches, visited college fairs, and even fanned out in Fenway Park on Opening Day for the Red Sox.

"We accepted applications and money orders on the spot," he said.

Suzanne Smalley can be reached at ssmalley@globe.com.