WASHINGTON – D.C. gained 37 new police officers on Friday after a swearing-in ceremony at Gallaudet University. But nine of them are Reserve Corps officers, so they get no pay.

“These are the ultimate in volunteers…they receive no form of compensation for their service,” Assistant Police Chief Patrick Burke said.

Despite the lack of a paycheck, according to Reserve Corps Commander Richard Southby, they are “armed from the day they graduate.”

These volunteers call themselves the “Noble Nine,” and they will have the same duties as career police officers. During the course of the past year, Reserve Corps Class Leader John Mein said, “the nine of us have gone through the 800-plus hours of the D.C. Police Academy.”

They all went through this rigorous training in addition to working their paying jobs.

“We have an accountant, a recently retired member of the Air Force, the director of training for the (Federal Aviation Administration), a high-level member of (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), a firefighter/paramedic, a writer for The Washington Post, a computer analyst and a wannabe comedian,” Mein says.

Mein is a civilian employee of the D.C. police department.

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