HARLEM — The Apollo Theater has seen its share of tough crowds — but few have been as tough as the 1,500 NYPD recruits that packed the historic 125th Street space Tuesday morning.
The recruits were taking part in the NYPD's four-day multicultural immersion course, Advancing Community Trust, which is intended to help cadets acclimate to the city's dizzying diversity by bringing the department's newest recruits together with some of its most vocal critics.
"It's a total immersion program on community relations, and what officers will face when they go out on the streets of this city," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters at the event.
"The thing we want to raise in their consciousness is the immense diversity that exists in New York City, by far the most diverse city in the world. We’ve asked [event guests] to speak very candidly and in unvarnished terms to our officers."
The NYPD is widely touted as the most diverse police force on the planet, with more than 34,000 officers hailing from dozens of countries and speaking scores of languages. But the department also has a long history of conflict in ethnic enclaves, and has come under increased fire in recent months for its controversial Stop and Frisk program.
"The community has profound mistrust [of law enforcement] and the police have to deal with that," said Rev. Herbert Daughtry, who joined Rev. Al Sharpton, Margarita Lopez, and Mark Riley to address the new recruits.
Though all four speakers have been vocal critics of the NYPD, Sharpton emphasized that they were hopeful they could foster a more positive relationship between law enforcement and the city's communities.
"We are not anti-police," he said. "We're anti-police misconduct, we're anti-police brutality — but we're also anti-crime."
