Tops in her cop class

Karolina Wierzchowska wanted to be either a police officer or a teacher as a young girl in Warsaw, Poland, but after coming to the Big Apple, she was drawn to the police force and recently proved herself to be one of their finest.
Wierzchowska finished at the top of her Police Academy class, after earning 100 percent in five fields - all of her three trimesters, a final exam and a rigorous physical test.
The 27-year-old Maspeth resident is now serving as a rookie at the Midtown South (MTS) Precinct and in a month on the job has already racked up five arrests - two for petty larceny collars and three for hauling in someone with a warrant out for their arrest.
“If this is what you want to be, if this is your passion, then definitely this is a great place to work,” she said.
At 19, Wierzchowska traveled to New York to reunite with her father, who had come to the United States when she was one month old. While her dad was in America making money to send back home, her mother labored long hours to support two kids - Wierzchowska and a brother one year her senior.
“It has always been my dream to come here,” she said. “I saw pictures with my dad, you know, with Manhattan, and I just fell in love in with the city.”
Wierzchowska’s path to the New York Police Department (NYPD) was not a straight one from the tarmac at J.F.K. International Airport after coming to this country. Along the way, the intrepid rookie worked for five months at Ground Zero and served one year in Nasiriyah, in southern Iraq, with the Army’s 369 Core Support Battalion, all the while trying to finish school.
“I joined the [NYPD’s] Cadet Corps program and then September 11 happened, so I had to put school on hold and work at Ground Zero,” she said. “Then I was deployed for another year so I had to put school on hold again.”
Wierzchowska said that where she was stationed - in a Shiite-controlled part of the war-torn nation - was not as dangerous as other areas, but traveling by convoy about once per month presented safety issues.
“I actually thought it was going to be harder … You just do what you have to,” she said.
“I matured a lot in Iraq. I think I got to appreciate a lot of things that I would have taken for granted … like going home to a nice place, not a tent, not a clay house, and being able to get into the car and going wherever I want to go, having nice restaurants around, having family here.”
Her dad, who lives close by, taught her to ride a motorcycle, and Wierzchowska’s brother has settled in Iowa.
After from Iraq, Wierzchowska went back to school at first but then decided to head straight to the Police Academy. However, her application got lost during the first try and she broke her arm a few days before she would have started in the next class.
“I think it was a sign,” she joked.
In her second trimester at the Police Academy, classmates began guessing that Wierzchowska would be valedictorian, even though a fellow cadet was about three points behind her. Nevertheless, Wierzchowska kept up her perfect score, beating out 913 other officers, and for the graduation ceremony, her mother and half-brother flew from Poland to see her stand at the podium.
“I was excited but then I was nervous because I had to prepare the speech, and it was like extra homework,” she joked.
In the Cadet Corps program, Wierzchowska dealt with complaints at the 94th Precinct, helped with testing in the Fitness Unit and spent a year at Queens Borough North, compiling statistics for CompStat, but in the future, she would like to work in the gym, training cadets for the mile-and-a-half run and obstacle course. Wierzchowska herself completed the run in 10:32, beating the requirement for female cadets by nearly four minutes.
“I love to workout,” she said.
For now, Wierzchowska will spend six months in midtown as part of the Operation Impact program, designed to influx the busiest precincts with newly minted officers. Then, she will fill out a “Wish List” for her ideal relocation.
At her current post, she encounters mostly larcenies and burglaries, and most of her fellow officers have already found about her scholarship.
“They tease me about it all of the time. ‘Oh, this is the valedictorian,’” she laughed. “That’s a lot of attention, sometimes too much.”
But it is just part of the job, she said, and whatever comes her way, she will be equipped.
“I’m ready for it. I am 27. A lot of guys here are 21, 22. I was in the military. I have college,” she said. “I think I’m pretty prepared for this job.”