Two NYPD recruits have been suspended after being caught having sex in a bathroom stall at the police academy in Queens.
The recruits have been identified as Javon Latibeaudiere, 26, and Madelin Ramirez Solano, 21. They’re believed to be in an ongoing relationship, according to the New York Post.
Both Mr Latibeaudiere and Ms Solano joined the NYPD in July and were put on the day tour.
“I am not supposed to talk about it,” Mr Latibeaudiere told The Post as he left her home in the Bronx at about 10am on Saturday. “I’m not supposed to talk to the press.”
“This is what we’re recruiting now,” the outlet quoted an NYPD “insider” as saying.
“These recruits don’t fear or care about getting caught breaking the rules,” another added.
Mr Latibeaudiere resides in Orange County in Upstate New York. The Marine veteran graduated from Pace University this year, his LinkedIn profile states.
He told CBS New York in 2019 that moving on to civilian life after his time in the military had been difficult.
“When you’re in the military, they don’t technically prepare you to leave the military. People don’t have the right resume, they don’t know how to translate what they learned in the military to real-life skills,” he said at a job fair.
The NYPD states on its website that the Queens facility is where “members of the department undergo extensive, rigorous preparation, befitting the most highly trained and effective law enforcement professionals in the country”.
Recruits spend six months at the academy, which has a gym, indoor track, as well as a “tactical village that emphasizes hands-on scenario-based training”.
“The two officers are suspended. The matter is under internal review,” the NYPD told The Post.
The suspensions were put in place shortly after Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said changes would be made to the NYPD’s disciplinary guidelines to make them less severe, according to NY1.
In a memo, the commissioner said she does “not want officers to feel that they have been treated unjustly, but rather motivated women and men who are enthusiastic members of the service who collaborate effectively with community residents”.
“In some of the cases, bad intent to officers was imputed when none was present, or situations were misinterpreted,” she added.
“This year, I have found it necessary to overrule a number of CCRB penalty recommendations because they were manifestly unfair to the officers under review,” Ms Sewell wrote in the memo obtained by NY1.
