[Quote:]

Officer Ricardo Montilla, who had been a financial adviser for Washington Mutual in Brooklyn, said he had hit a wall in his civilian pay, and joined the force in December.

“I was making a lot of money, and then not making money,” he said. “As the economy got worse, the investments dried up and I needed more stability. The police offer a pension that’s unheard of.”

In the current first-year class of rookies, Officer Montilla, 31, is one of several refugees from the financial industry, an uncommon breeding ground for police officers. He and two academy classmates who had also worked in finance said they had been willing to give up larger salaries partly because they were afraid they would not be able to support their families if the economy continued to slow.

A year and a half ago, Henry Chung was an assistant vice president at Merrill Lynch, monitoring billions of dollars the firm traded on a daily basis.

The NYPD is taking just anyone these days, aren’t they.